Fear and Loathing at True Cross Academy
by wahs96
Summary: Fear is a funny thing. It can drive men to do the most horrible things, and there is a lot of it in the air with this new foreign exchange student in town. How will he impact the lives and future of the cram school students? Read on and find out! Reviews are appreciated!
1. The American Devil

**Authors note: First of all, this fic has no relationship parings, and no sexuality of ANY kind. I hate writing such things and when I do it tends to fuck up whatever it is I'm writing, so don't ask me to include a relationship paring in later chapters of this fic.**

**As of now I only have three chapters planned for this fic, if you have any ideas on where I should go with it after those first three chapters, feel free to leave a comment telling me. In fact, feel free to leave a comment telling me ANYTHING in relation to this fic. If you hate it than tell me, and then tell me why.**

**Most of my writing is pretty heavy on dialogue and pretty light on pretty much everything else, so I'm sorry if some parts of this seem a little bit slim.**

**All of this takes place during their second year after the events of episode 25. So without further ado: Chapter 1, The American Devil is Coming to Town.**

**...**

"You did what?" Rin said as he grabbed his brother by the collar.

"Christ, Rin, get off of me!" Yukio pushed his brother away. "Look, as the head of our class I have to take in a foreign exchange student. There's no way I can get out of it, and believe when I say that I tried." Yukio straightened his exorcist uniform.

"Yeah, well you didn't try hard enough! Now there's going to be another kid in the dorm with us! I'll have to walk around being all secretive again. Do you have any Idea how uncomfortable it is to hide a tail in your pants?" Rin Yelled.

Yukio shook his head. "Oh, come on. He's only going to be here for a couple of months."

Rin's chaw hit the floor and he starred at his brother with wide eyes. "A couple of months! Are you insane?"

Yukio took his glasses off and pulled a small cloth from his pocket and proceeded to wipe off all the saliva that had accumulated while his brother had been yelling mere inches from his face. "Like I said, Rin." Yukio said as he put his classes back on. "I don't like this anymore than you do, but it's something that we just half to live with."

"I think I've had enough of _those _for a life time." Rin muttered. He sat down on his bed and folded his arms in some kind of childish defiance.

Yukio sighed. "Well, if nothing else, this should be a good learning experience. Living with someone who's not obligated by blood to put up with your bullshit should teach you some proper manners and people skills." Yukio picked up his suit case and made his way to the door of their dorm room. He opened the door, but then turned around to face his brother again. "Oh, and one more thing. I talked to him on the phone today, he sounded like one of those sheltered American types, so be nice to him, and don't scare him to death. This may very well be the first time he's seen the outside world."

"Wait!" Rin stood straight up and in doing so smacked his head into the bunk above his bed. "Did you say 'American'?" The bump on the head had not muted him at all. "Oh God! I bet he's greasy and fat and disrespectful. He's gonna fallow me around all day demanding that I buy him cheese burgers! And..."

Yukio decided to leave before this storm of stereotypes and political incorrectness could develop any further. Even as he was a good twenty feet down the hallway he could still hear his brother spouting off about the 'fat greasy American.' He shook his head. This was going to be a long couple of months.

…

Later that day, Rin entered the Cram School class room still pretty mopy about the news of the foreign exchange student. He kept his head down and quietly muttered curses and stereotypical slurs all the way to his seat. It was still a few minutes before class was supposed to start, but all of the students were there, sitting and chatting while they waited for the teacher to show up. Rin fell into his seat, and as soon as he did, Renzo was right there, talking in his ear.

"Well folks, it looks as though the universe is about to turn in on itself, for our very own Rin Okumura is actually in a _bad mood._" Renzo said with stinging sarcasm. "So, what is it that's troubling you, hmm?"

Rin felt Renzo's hand come down hard on his shoulder. Rin turned to see Renzo sitting on top of the table behind him, wearing that big dumb grin he always had on. Then Bon and Konekomaru pulled up a chair on either side of him. Rin found himself suddenly surrounded by big, dumb, and quizzical grins all wanting answers.

"Yeah Rin, what's up?" Bon inquired.

Rin sighed. "Yukio has to take in a damn foreign exchange student. Which means that _I _have to take in a damn foreign exchange student."

Konekomaru scratched his chin. "So that means your gonna be like an ambassador for our country." He said.

Then Renzo simply broke out laughing. "You... a representative... for our country..." He got out in between chuckles.

Bon Raised an eyebrow. "I don't know whether I should be laughing or crying." He said.

"Hey!" Rin snapped. "I'll shove my hand down your throat and rip the wise-ass right out of you!"

Bon folded his arms. "Jeeze, no need to be such a spaz."

Rin could feel his heat building. He shot Bon a scathing look, but he probably would have gotten better results if he had shot it to rock. Bon just sat there with his arms folded and his nose up in the air. It was that posh pose that Rin hated so, so much. Rin had already coiled back for a sucker punch when their teacher, Yukio that is, walked through the door.

"Alright class, settle down." He said on his way to his desk. He set his suit case down on the teacher's podium. But instead of getting out his class notes and lessons plans like he usually did, he just paused for a moment. "Umm... we'll start class in a minute. But first I need to ask all of you a favor." Yukio took a second to look around and make sure everyone was paying attention, and of course, they were. "Some of you may know that as the head for our entire second-year class, I am obligated to take in a foreign exchange student. He will be arriving tomorrow after classes are over, and when he does, I am supposed to have a welcoming party for him. Nothing fancy, just sit in a circle and ask him questions about where he's from and what kind of person he is, and answer any questions that he has about us." Then Izumo's hand shot up. "Yes, Miss Kamiki." Yukio said.

"Why do we have to do this, cant you get some normal people from the high school to help you out?" She said.

"Well you see." Rin said, turning to face her where she sat at the back of the room. "My brother here is kind of anti-social and dimwitted, so he doesn't really know anyone from the high school. We are pretty much all he's got." Then Bon tapped on Rin's shoulder. Rin looked at Bon, who pointed at Yukio, who was giving Rin the stare of death. "Oh! Sorry for interrupting class, teacher." He said, trying to disappear into his seat.

Yukio grunted. "Alright then, if there are no more questions, we will meet in the boys dormitory at six o'clock tomorrow. That's where we will be greeting him. Now lets begin class."

…

Yukio had his doubts about whether or not people would actually show up. But as they filed into the room at five-o'clock, a smile spread across his face. It wouldn't be so bad, would it? They would ask him some cliché questions about living in America, and he would probably bounce them right back, then the jet lag would become to much for him and he would go to bed while the rest of them went back to there dorms and studied. _A piece of cake, _or at least that's what he believed the American expression was.

Naturally, Rin, Renzo, Bon, and Konekomaru had found each other immediately and had confined themselves to a close circle where they were trading whispers.

"So he's and American, eh?" Renzo asked.

"Yeah." Rin said. "Do you guys know anything about the Americans?"

Bon scratched his head. "Well, that's kind of an abstract, _and idiotic, _statement. America is full of different kinds of people, so they don't really have any specific traits in relation to their culture or their race. For all we know he could be _Japanese._"

"I remember one time I saw this picture online of these to incredibly fat American girls waiting for a McDonald's to open." Renzo said.

"Yeah, I heard that they do have a bit of an obesity problem over there." Konekomaru said.

"Could you imagine that, somebody that's like five feet tall and two-hundred-and-fifty pounds walking around this campus? He would stick out like a sore thumb." Rin said.

"I already feel sorry for this American." Renzo said.

"I wouldn't. If he's Caucasian than he's probably racist." Bon said.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Bon, but I'm pretty sure that statement is racist itself." Konekomaru said.

"Whatever, but the first time he refers to you as a 'Slanty-eyed-bastard' I get to say 'I told you so." Bon said.

"Well, is there anything inherently _good _about the Americans, considering we've already ruled out physical and mental health?" Konekomaru said.

"Well, do they make good food?" Rin asked.

"No." Bon said.

"Don they make good cars?" Konekomaru asked.

"No." Bon said.

"Music, maybe?" Renzo said.

Bon shook his head. "Not really."

Konekomaru sighed. "Well Bon, you said yourself that America is full of different kinds of people, maybe this American isn't so bad."

"I wonder how good his Japanese is." Renzo said.

"Well, he was able to hold a conversation with my brother over the phone, and knowing how many five-dollar words that come out of his mouth, it's actually pretty impressive." Rin said.

"Yeah, but I bet his accent is God awful." Renzo said.

"No doubt." Bon said.

In opposite corner of the lunch room sat Shiemi and Izumo. They weren't huddled in close like the boys were. They just sat next to each other kept to themselves. But Izumo was starting to notice how fidgety Shiemi was getting, she kept tapping her feet and moving around in her chair. Finally, Izumo's curiosity got the better of her, and she opened her mouth.

"What's up with you today, are you nervous or something?" Izumo asked.

Shiemi jumped a little in her seat. It was surprising for Izumo to participate in conversation, let alone _initiate _it. "Um... I'm just a little excited, that's all. I've never met anybody from outside of our prefecture before, not to mention some one from a different country." Then she flashed Izumo a smile. To which Izumo responded with her signature look of neutrality, which was pretty much as close as she got to a smile these days. Shiemi accepted it and went back to quietly fidgeting in her seat.

Yukio looked at his watch. "Hmm. He probably should have been here by now." As if on cue, Yukio heard two knocks on the wall. Everyone looked up to entrance of the cafeteria, and there he was, the American, leaning against the door frame.

"Hey." He said.

…

**Please leave a review or a comment. Next chapter coming soon. Thank you!**


	2. The American Devil Arrives

**Thanks to everyone who subscribed, favorited, and commented! Enjoy the chapter!**

**Chapter 2: The American Devil Arrives.**

They all silently stared at this American for a moment. Not out of amazement, or anything as dramatic as that. More out of a combination of curiosity and a total loss for what to say next. He didn't exactly look strange, just different. He was Caucasian, tall, thin, and overall pretty averagely built. His hair was cropped short, and on his head were a pair of cheap sunglasses. His eyes were a very bright green, but the deep dark circles underneath them seemed much more prominent at the time. He wore a smile, but the strain in his face gave the impression that it was taking a considerable amount of his remaining energy to sustain it. All he had on was a white T-shirt and some wrinkled blue jeans, along with some grass and mud-stained sneakers.

Yukio grunted to get everyone's attention, which broke the moment of awkward silence. "Everybody, this is..."

"Ronny Ferus." He cut Yukio off. "Sorry, but I couldn't run the risk of you calling me 'Ronald.' That would just be to much." He said. He took another step into the cafeteria, and then paused. He lifted his nose slightly and sniffed the air. Then he scanned the room quickly, his eyes momentarily falling on everyone of the second-year cram school students. There were a few of the students he paused and looked at for a considerably longer moment; Yukio, KoneKomaru, Shiemi, and Rin... He gave Rin a rather long, puzzling glance. Then he started forward again. "You must be Yukio." He said, holding out his hand.

Yukio took it. "Yes, it's nice to finally meet you. These are my classmates." He said, gesturing to the surrounding teenagers. "Izumo, Shiemi, Bon..." He said as he pointed out each of them. "Konekomaru, Renzo, and this is my twin brother, Rin." He said, pointing at his brother.

Ronny studied Rin's face for a second. "Seriously, twins? No offense, but I don't see it."

Yukio laughed. "Well thank God." He said. The rest of them laughed along with him, except Rin, of course. Normally he would have reacted in some way, probably negatively, but while everyone else was laughing, he just kind of stared off into space, thinking about how this American had looked at him a minute ago, it sent a chill up his spine. "Well, Why don't you sit down, Ronny." Yukio said.

"Sure." Ronny said. There were plenty of open chairs, but Ron didn't even take time to consider them all before he made a bee-line for the one right next to Rin. Rin kept his unblinking gaze on Ronny the entire time, and was still staring after Ronny had set all of his luggage down and dropped into the seat. "Well, first of all, Let me say that I love your campus." He said, totally oblivious to Rin's gaze, or choosing to ignore it . "My school back in the States was designed by a guy who did prisons and penitentiaries for a living. It's just a brick box with no windows and one door. You guys practically got a whole city here."

"Yeah, I've been here a year and I still get lost sometimes." Renzo said, braking the ice. So to speak.

"Well that's because you spend all of your time aimlessly fallowing every pretty girl that crosses your path, with total disregard for where she is leading you." Bon said.

"Ha! Yeah, I got that problem, too." Ronny said.

"So, Ron, where in the United States are you from, a big city, right?" Yukio said to get everyone back on track.

"Yeah, big city on the east coast..."

"What's it like living there?" Shieme said before Ron had time to elaborate.

Ron shrugged. "What's it like living anywhere else? I don't get out of the city much, so I don't have a lot to compare it to."

"But I bet you have some pretty crazy stories!" Shiemi said, practically jumping up and down in her seat with excitement.

Ron chuckled. "Yes, that I do. I could share one or two, if we have the time."

"Go right ahead." Yukio said, and the rest of the students nodded in agreement.

"Okay well, I don't know how 'cool' or 'crazy' this story is, but it made me laugh at the time." Ronny shifted nervously in his seat and cleared his throat. "So I knew this kid in freshman year - that's what we call the first year of high school in most of America – Who had this ferret; this furry rat-snake thing was like his best friend in the world, the dude even took this thing school. One day he goes to brush it's hair or whatever it is he was gonna do, and it's dead. Just dead, perfectly healthy ferret just dead on floor, and at the time he couldn't figure out the reason why..."

Izumo leaned over close to Shiemi's ear. "God, I knew this guy was going to be boring." She whispered.

"... And so it turns out this ferret got into like an ounce of cocaine he had hidden under his floorboards." Ron said, totally nonchalant.

All of the cram school students just about fell out of their chairs. They weren't laughing of course, just kind of shocked. Lets face it, out of all of them, only the Okumura brothers had grown up in an urban environment, and even they had been raised in a monastery. The mere mention of a highly illegal drug was enough to throw them off balance, not to mention some that had been stashed, and probably bought by a high-school kid.

"Um..." Konkomaru said when he came to his senses. "You never..." He trailed off.

Ronny raised an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, sure. I brought a whole brick of it over in my back pack. You want to try some?" He said sarcastically. Then he shook his head. "No, I've never done cocaine. I have a few neighbors that have permanently scared me away from all of that stuff."

"What, like police officers?" Renzo asked.

Ronny looked at Renzo like he was mentally ill. "No, crackheads." He said.

Yukio cleared his throat rather loudly. "Alright, changing the subject. Um, what are your hobbies, Ron, what do you do for fun?" He asked.

"Well, just about the only thing my old-man left me was his collection of firearms, so I do a lot of shooting, and I enjoy that a lot. It's funny, how when I go out to the country to compete in shooting tournaments and stuff, all of the farm and suburban kids just don't get how a city guy like me could be so good with a gun. Make's them really mad." Then he turned and looked right at Rin. "I never really got into swords, though. In America we call that 'compensation.' But to each his own."

Rin froze completely, like time had stopped. Sure, he had his sword leaning up against his chair, but it was in it's bag, how could this American know it was a sword? "How did you know it was sword?" Rin asked.

"Well because..." Ron trailed off for a second. "Oh, it doesn't matter." He said

Now that caught Yukio off guard, he was expecting the American to say that he just took a shot in the dark and guessed that it was a sword. But the fact that he avoided Rin's question was puzzling. Yukio looked around, the rest of the cram school students seemed not to have taken any notice that something was out-of-place.

"Well, I hate to cut this short, but the jet lag is killing me, I think I'm gonna hit the sack." Ron said.

Yukio instantly forgot about the sword, and remembered that he had to give Ron his schedule. "Wait." Yukio said as Ron was walking out of the room. "Here is your class schedule and a full map of the campus." He said as he handed the folded pieces of paper to Ron. "Oh, and you have tomorrow off to settle in and adjust to the timezone. Also, you can pick up your school uniform at the administrator's office tomorrow."

"Thanks." He said. Then he gave a quick wave to all of the cram school students before heading out of the room, suit case in tow.

Yukio turned around and looked at his students. "Well, this will be interesting." He said.

…

Yukio looked at his watch, he was going to be late, but even in spite of that, he smiled. He had decided long ago that his brother's cooking was good enough to miss an entire class period for, if it came to that, and this morning he was actually relatively early. He sat at one of the cafeteria tables as his brother finished up the bacon and eggs in the kitchen. The smell of the food was intoxicating, but in a good way, if that's even possible. It made Yukio's mouth water. His mind drifted briefly back to former night when the American first arrived. But he pushed these thoughts from his mind, he had class to focus on and, more importantly, breakfast.

"Hey." Ron said. Yukio turned his attention to the cafeteria entrance. Ron stood there, his hair was a complete mess, and the imprint of his pillow shown pretty clearly on the right side of his face. But he was smiling, so at least he had that going for him. He took a step into the room, but paused when he noticed Rin's sword on the kitchen counter. After a second he continued forward.

"Hey, your up!" Yukio said.

"Yeah well, I think I slept for damn near twelve hours, and I couldn't resist the smell of food." He said as he hobbled over to Yukio's table and plopped down across from him. "So you guys have no supervision here, whatsoever right?" He asked.

Yukio was a little taken aback by the question. "Yeah, so what?" He said.

"It just amazes me, you guys get a whole dorm complex to yourselves, not even a school official or a hall monitor to watch over you. At my school there's always at least one liaison officer on each floor, usually more."

Yukio raised an eyebrow. "Why do you need _that?_" He said.

"That's what's kind of funny about it, 'cause if me or anyone else knew the answer to that question than we probably wouldn't need them in the first place." Ron said.

Yukio nodded, but was hesitant. He didn't peg this American for someone who was that... deep. He pondered what Ron had said for a moment.

"Alright, breakfast is served!" Rin called out. He carried a big platter of eggs and bacon out of the kitchen with him. "Oh, good morning Ron." Rin said, noticing the American for the first time.

"Yeah, good morning." Ron returned the gesture with a smile.

"Well, it looks like my brother made a little bit extra." Yukio said as he stared at the huge stack of bacon and the mountain of scrambled eggs. "So help yourself."

"Don't mind if I do." Ron said.

Rin walked back to kitchen and took off his apron, hanging it up in the back. Then he grabbed his sword off the counter top and jogged back to where Yukio and Ron were sitting. He sat down next to his brother, but eyed the American before digging into the food.

"Wow, you made this yourself?" Ron asked in between mouthfuls of scrambled eggs.

"Yeah. It's just scrambled eggs, though." Rin said with a raised eyebrow.

Ron chuckled. "You obviously haven't seen the school food where I come from. For me, this is fine dining."

Yukio and Rin just looked at each other like they had discovered a creature from another planet. A planet where cocain was more abundant than a good plate of scrambled eggs.

"Me and Rin have to get to class." Yukio said when his plate was cleared.

"Well, don't be late on account of me." Ron said.

"We already are. But don't worry, there's nothing unusual about that."

As Yukio stood up, Ron saw a the glisten of metal from inside his jacket, his eyes just confirming what he already knew. Rin kept his eyes on Ron while he stood, not wanting miss any move the American might make. Rin realized the absurdity of what he was doing. He decided he needed to stop being so paranoid, this American was a little strange, but it didn't mean he was dangerous.

"Hey, Yukio." Ron said when the Okumura brothers were about half way to the door.

"Yeah, what is it Ron?" Yukio said, turning around to face him.

"I just realized that your school clothes are different from the others I've seen. Is it like something for honor students only?"

Yukio looked down at his exorcist uniform. "Uh, Yeah."

"Hmm. I think I've seen something like it before, back in the States. Is it an international-program?"

"I don't know, maybe." Yukio said with a shrug.

"Okay." Ron nodded his approval of Yukio's response. "So I guess I will see you guys when you get back from your classes."

"Yes, we will be back here at around four-thirty. Maybe then Rin here can give you a more in-depth tour of the campus." Yukio said, looking back at his brother. Rin shot him look and the words _Oh dear God don't make me _echoed in his mind. It wasn't demon telepathy, just twin telepathy.

"Sounds good." Ron said.

Rin didn't feel it was safe to speak again until they were out the front door and good a hundred feet from the dorm.

"Do I really have to show that guy around? He weirds me out!" Rin said.

"Ha! Coming from the son of Lucifer." Yukio chuckled at Rin's paranoia.

"Hey! Your on that boat too, now." Rin said, grabbing his brother by one of his unnaturally pointy ears.

"Oh, thanks for reminding me, I _damn near forgot_!" Yukio said with a tone of sarcasm.

"That's what I'm here for, four-eyes."

Ron stood looking out from the third story window, watching the brothers. For once in his life he wanted something mundane and normal, he didn't want to admit that there was something off about the brothers, and he really didn't want to admit that he didn't trust them. But his nose didn't lie, and he knew from experience that things do not end well when there are teenagers with guns involved.

When he was satisfied that they weren't coming back, he turned and headed straight toward their room. He opened the door, but before he went inside, he just stood at the threshold and sniffed the air. His eyes locked on Yukio's desk. He quickly covered the short distance and knelt in front of it. He sniffed at it. The smell was stronger now, and from this distance he could tell it was coming from the lowest drawer. Ron was surprised to find that it wasn't locked. Now, it is important to know that Ron wasn't a nosy person, at least not in the proverbial sense. He kept to his business as long as other people kept to theirs. But when you find several-dozen 45 Caliber Total-Metal-Jacket bullets in the desk of an honor student, you can't help but get curious. Ron held one such bullet between his index finger and his thumb. He examined it more closely and saw a small cross and some strange writing printed on the side of the brass. "That's weird. Ceremonial markings maybe?" He held it to his nose and took in a deep breath, savoring the smell. It didn't smell a whole lot different than a normal forty-five, but there _something _different about it's scent. "Intent." He said. "That's what is strange. What where you made for, what is your purpose?" He asked the bullet as he placed it back in it's row, and was about to close the drawer when he noticed how shallow it seemed from the inside. He pulled it back out and ran his fingers along the edge of it. Sure enough, the bullets had been sitting on a removable tray, that he lifted to reveal another layer to the drawer. This one was filled with empty spare magazines. They were just kind of in a pile, not the neat rows and columns that the bullets were organized into. He picked on up to get a better look. But after a few seconds he could tell it wasn't from a piece he recognized. Definitely pistol mags, but that's about all he could tell. "Used, but not on people, and not on an animal." He said after taking a few sniffs of the mags. He reached both hands down into the drawer and, after some jiggling, managed to pull out the layer that the mags had been sitting on. He set it down on the floor next to the bullets. What he found in the bottom layer gave him a bit of shock. "Hand Grenades?" He said. At this point, it wasn't so surprising that Yukio had the grenades. What was strange was that he had not smelled them before, as they should have given off an even greater stench than the bullets. He picked one up and held it to his nose, sure enough, it barely had a scent at all, there was some lingering smells from all of the people that had come in contact with it, but the grenade itself did not produce a scent. "How strange. What were you made for?" He asked. He held it to his ear and shook it around. From within it he could hear a sloshing noise. "A liquid?" He turned the grenade upside down to reveal an access cap on the bottom of it. He popped the cap off, and brought the opening to his nose. Whatever was in it smelled so strong that he actually lost his balance. The bitterness of it was intoxicating, and he started to choke on the smell. In desperation, he grabbed for a bullet from the tray, knocking several others off. He held the bullet to his nose and filled his nostrils with it's scent, clearing out the smell of the grenade's ghastly liquid.

It took him a minute to catch his breath. He leaned against Yukio's bed frame and faced the bed on the opposite side of the room, where he assumed Rin slept. No, he knew that's where he slept, the unmistakable scent of that sword lingered here. "God this is strange." He said. "One brother with led and the other with steal. What could they possibly be used for? They live on campus, don't they? What could possibly be more sheltered and safe than the grounds of a private Catholic school, what the hell do they need those weapons for?" What got to him the most was that sword, though. It was practically radioactive, he had sniffed it out the moment he had walked through the front gate. Even stranger was that there seemed to be hot-spots, where the scent got considerably stronger, dotted all through out the campus. Were these places where the sword had been drawn?

He sighed. "Answers will come in time." He shook his head. "But right now I have to clean this up." He said, looking at the mess he had made.

It didn't take him long to get Yukio's drawer back in order, and clean up all other incriminating evidence. He decided a shower was in order. The hot water would help clear his mind, and his sinuses.

"Yukio and Rin are different from the other people I've met since I got here." He said, thinking out loud as he walked to the bath room. "It's like they're scared of something nobody else is even aware of. Always looking over their shoulders for... what, a boogeyman? And it's not just them, it's that whole class of people that were there to greet me last night." Ron shook his head. "It just doesn't make any sense. None of it!"

He was only a couple steps away from the bathrooms when he just froze. "That smell. How did I not smell that before?" He said, dropping his towel, and making a made dash for the door to the girls bathroom. "The sword! The scent of the sword must masked it." He answered his own question as he busted through the door. The girls bathroom was empty of course, which shocked him. "How can the scent be that strong if there's nobody here." He gave it a couple more sniffs. Finally he smelled the staleness of it. "It is almost a year old, but yet it lingers with such intensity?"

There were two scents for two different people. Ron knelt by the first, which was near the floor behind some lockers and right next to the bathroom entrance. "A girl hid behind these lockers, here. She was scared, but not for herself. For someone else?" He said, looking up, past the rows of lockers to the back of the bathroom, near the tub. He stood and walked over to the spot were the other scent was most strong. As he knelt, he noticed that some of the tiles were scuffed. "Hmm. This looks like an acidic burn." He said, running his finger over the tiles. "The other girl fell here. The scent is so strong that I could trace her exact outline." He said, tracing her with his finger. "She was scared. But she wasn't scared for her life, she was past that. Acceptance had settled in, and she was simply scared about what the next life had in store for her." He shook his head. "What scared you so badly?" He asked to no one. "What could possibly..." Then he looked up, past the tub, to the ceiling above it. There was a whole in the ceiling, big enough for three men. It wasn't pretty, either. It looked like someone, or _something_ had clawed it's way through the wall. "So, Yukio, have I found your boogeyman?"

Then it hit him. In one big wave it hit him. It knocked him off his balance and he tumbled backward onto his ass. He pinched his nose. The smell was overpoweringly rich. Then Ron realized, it was pure.

Pure Fear.


	3. The American Devil Looks for the Truth

**Okay, I now have more than the original three chapters planned of this fic, but now that my break is over I don't know how often I will be updating it.**

**Just encase anyone gets confused, I watched the anime, I didn't read the manga. In the anime, I'm pretty damn sure that Izumo refers to her best friend as "Paku" but the Wikipedia page for the manga says that her name is "Noriko Park" so that's what I am going to be calling her in this fic. (The Wikipedia page also says that Noriko is a Korean living in Japan, another detail that's never mentioned in the anime. Or perhaps I'm just going insane.)**

**P.s. _Italic _Text is when a character is thinking.**

**...**

After the incident in the bathroom, Ron quickly made his way back to this dorm room and sat down on his bed. "God, what do I do now?" He asked to thin air. "I've found... shit, I don't even know what I've found."

Ron decided that he needed to get out of the dormitory. He could deal with the stench coming from the girl's bathroom, it was rich, but enjoyable all the same. What he couldn't stand was not knowing what caused said stench. His mind kept jumping back and forth between the Okumura brothers and the two girls that he had smelled in the bathroom. What did Yukio need that much firepower to defend himself from, was it the same person or thing that had attacked the girls? Was that person or thing still around, or was it dead? If it was dead than why did Yukio still need to be armed? Were there more of them?

He shook his head. He needed to get his mind straight and organize what he knew. "There was a girl attacked and possibly mortally wounded in the bathroom of this dormitory almost a year ago. Now, It is inhabited only by two people; brothers, and both armed. There must be a connection here, but what the hell is it?" he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "OK, first of all, find the girl. Second, find out what happened and what her connection to the Okumura brothers is. Third, figure out just what the hell is going on here. Good. I have a plan. Plans are good." But then he thought of something else. "Wait, shit! How the hell am I supposed to find this girl if I don't even know her name? There must be several-thousand students that go to this academy, hundreds of teachers, and twenty-plus education buildings." He didn't know where he was going to look, but he needed to look, and he needed to get out.

Ron threw on a pair of black jeans, a wife beater, and a black polo. The outfit wouldn't stand up to close inspection, but the colors and the organization was right so that he could probably blend with the rest of the students, as long as none of them got too curious. Then he grabbed the campus map Yukio had given him. He was about to walk out the door when the glare off of something from his nightstand made him turn around. His sunglasses were reflecting the light coming in through the window. He grabbed them, and put them on his head as he headed out of the room.

In the hall way he caught the stench of something bitter, and in general quite awful. Fear smelled sweet normally, so bitterness was something Ron had come to associate with a total lack of it. The arrogant, the ignorant, and the apathetic often gave of a very bitter smell. He looked down the hallway, but there was no one.

Then he heard the sound: "Yip! Yip!" He looked down to see a small white Terrier sitting at his feet. As he did so, smell became considerably worse.

"God, that awful stench couldn't be coming from you, could it?" He said. The dog only gave another yip in response. Ron brought his foot up and slammed it down hard the wooden floor right in front of the dog. It didn't even flinch, it just kind of stared blankly at him. "Hmm. You've got a pretty good poker face for an animal with a brain the size of a walnut, but now you must get out of my way." He brushed the small dog aside with his foot, and headed down the hall way toward the stairs. But the bitter smell and the sound of tiny paws on wood fallowed him all the way out the front door.

The smell of the dog got milder once he was out in the fresh air. It was a beautiful day, the sky was clear and blue, and a nice cool breeze muted the heat from the sun. Ron pulled his sunglasses down over his eyes, and he pulled the map from his pants pocket. For first time Ron noticed "We are here" printed in red pen, with an arrow pointing to the dormitory. Underneath the message was a little smiley face. It made Ron laugh. "Well thank you, Yukio." He said.

The map was laid out like one of those tourist attraction maps. All of the buildings and sites were numbered, and on the edge of the map was a box where corresponding numbers sat next to information on each of the places the map featured. He ran his finger down the list, and stopped when He came to: **Library: Home of the Academy's vast book collection and publicly accessible records and archives. **"The Archives might tell me something." He said.

He took a minute to situate himself and figure out the best route to the library. Because True Cross Academy resembles a small city in size and scope, it was going to take him a while to get to the library from where he was, so he started off at a brisk pace. He enjoyed the walk, but with each step he began to doubt his theory more and more. _What kind of archive would I be looking for? _He thought. _They wouldn't just keep a record of every time someone got injured, would they? They might keep a record of admissions to the campus hospital, but I doubt those would be publicly available._

"Excuse me, would like to join the school news paper?" A voice said.

Ron looked up to see a girl holding a pamphlet in his face_. _She was shaking like she had hypothermia, and she kept her eyes pointed at the ground. Ron's nose told him he had a nervous wreck on his hands.

"Um, no thank you." He said, doing them both a favor. The girl looked relieved. She nodded in response and hurried along in opposite direction of where Ron was going. Probably looking for the next person to harass with a her pamphlets. Ron instantly forgot about her as went back to thinking about his dilemma. He tossed ideas and theories back in forth in his head for the remainder of his walk to library.

He stood and stared at the library for a minute, just in awe. At his school, the library didn't even have it's own room, but this place was the size of a small apartment block! It was made out of brick, and had columns in the front, making the it look pseudo-Roman. There were four floors, and on the top one there seemed to be people moving around near the windows.

"Alright, here we go." He said. As he got closer to the front door, he noticed two figures half-hidden behind one of the large columns. When he had reached to door, he could see them clearly; a young couple making out in the shadows. He smirked. "Hey!" He called out. "I thought this was supposed to be a nice Catholic school!" He couldn't help himself.

The guy looked up and snarled at him. "Fuck you, American."

"No thank you." Ron replied.

"Come on, lets get out of here." The guy said. Then he grabbed his girl by the arm and stomped off with her stumbling behind him.

Ron chuckled. "Back to the task at hand." He said. He proceeded through the large wooden doors. It seemed to be strangely dark inside, Ron thought for a second that maybe the library was closed, then he realized he still had his sunglasses on. He pushed his sunglasses up to his forehead and looked around. The place seemed even bigger from the inside. He didn't even know where to begin looking, but then again, he didn't even know what he was looking for. Then he eyed a help desk near the middle of the massive room. There didn't appear to be anyone attending it, but maybe they would be back soon. He walked up to it, and tapped the desk bell. To his surprise, a little women jumped up from underneath the desk, covered in a thin layer of book dust.

"What?" She snapped. Before Ron had time to respond, she seemed to forget about him and began looking at the ground behind him. "Sir, we do not allow pets in the library." She said.

Ron turned around to see that little white dog that had fallowed him out of the dorm. _Crap, I completely forgot about that thing. _He turned back to the woman. "Sorry, not my dog, never seen it before." he said.

"He fallowed you in here." The woman said, as if commanding Ron to do something about it.

Ron's face twitched a little, but he smiled, and then turned around and said "Shoo-shoo." to the little dog while motioning toward the door. The dog looked at him with it's usual expression of boredom and apathy, but now with a layer of displeasure underneath. Ron shook his head in disbelief. _Am I going insane or did that little dog really look displeased with me? I didn't think dogs could had that kind of depth. _While Ron was still stunned, the little dog turned around and made it's way back toward the front door. _Okay, get a hold of yourself. _Ron put on his best smile-of-innocence, and turned back toward to the help-desk woman. "Uh, I was wondering if you could direct me to your archives and public records."

The little woman raised an eyebrow. "We have a lot of those. Your going to have to be more specific."

Ron hit a mental wall. "Um..." He stuttered. "Could you possibly direct me to good one?" If it would have been physically possible for Ron to shove his foot up his own ass at that moment, he would probably have done it.

The woman's eyebrow raised a little a further. "Are you interested in a particular genre?" She said, mocking him.

Then something clicked in Ron's head. He remember that girl that had stopped him on the his walk here, the one that shoved a pamphlet in his face. "Do you by any chance keep an archive of all the published school news papers?" He said.

"Actually yes we do." The woman said, seeming to forget all about Ron's previous blunder. "We are actually very proud of our student run publication here, would you like a subscription?" She said, glowing.

"Uh, maybe later. But right now I would really like to take a look at that archive." He said.

The woman frowned slightly, but opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out what appeared to be a locker key. "Here." She said, handing the key to Ron. "This should open all of the appropriate filing cabinets. The archives are in the back, and they are in alphabetical order, but the news paper wont be under 'N,' it will be under 'T' for 'The True Cross Academic.' That's the name of the paper."

"Thank you." Ron said, slipping the key into his pocket. _Its a long shot. _He thought. _But maybe, just maybe, this incident made it into the news. It would make an entertaining read, wouldn't it? 'High-school girls attacked in privacy of bathroom' yeah, that sounds like the kind of thing I read all the time back in the states._

The filing cabinets looked like they hadn't been touched in ages, much like the rest of the library. After a bit of searching, he found an entire block of cabinets labeled _"_The True Cross Academic." According to the years labeled under the name, each cabinet held three years worth of news papers, dating all the way back to the 1950's. It didn't take him long to find the most recent addition. It was a monthly publication, so that made it easier to find the right date. He went about a year back, looking at three papers that were around the same age as the scent from the girl's bathroom. As he scanned the front cover of the oldest one, his eyes lit up. In a column to the far right side of paper labeled "Tabloids" there were several article headers, one read: **Girls Attacked In Dormitory Bathroom, Rapist suspected. Read more on page 7.**

"Alright, here's my lead." Ron said. He folded the paper and stuffed it into his shirt. "I don't think anyone will miss you much." He said as he closed and locked the cabinet.

He made his way back to the help desk. The little woman was still there, apparently very engrossed in a book. But as he got closer, he could see that she had fallen asleep while reading, and was quietly snoring in her chair. Ron walked up and rang the bell, probably a little bit harder than necessary. The women jumped, startled. She looked up at Ron.

"Yes! What is it?" She snapped at Ron.

"Here's your key back." He said, dropping it on the desk.

The woman stared at the key for a moment, a little perplexed, but then her eyes lit up as she remembered. "Oh... oh yes, thank you." She said with a bit of an apologetic tone. She grabbed the key off the desk and dropped it in her drawer.

"Could you tell me where the headquarters of the school newspaper is?" Ron asked.

"Of course. They are on the top floor of this building."

"Well, that's convenient." He said, thinking out loud. "Um, thank you." He said to the help-desk woman.

He pulled the paper out of his shirt as he walked up the stairs. _Maybe the author will have some more information on this girl. _He turned the paper to page seven, , where the header was repeated in big, bold letters. Underneath it was the name of the author, but as Ron took a closer look, a wave of guilt washed over him. He realized he couldn't pronounce the author's name. _So this is what it feels like to be the ugly American. _He shoved the paper back down his shirt and kept going.

There wasn't much to speak of on both the second and third floors, just conference halls and axillary classrooms, all of which appeared to be empty. But when he got to the fourth floor, there seemed to be an explosion of activity. Ron couldn't believe what he was seeing, it looked like the office of a real news paper! There were rows of desks all with computers and people working on them. There were people rushing around, talking the phone, arguing, etc. It had the bustle and feel of a real place-of-work, and goddamn was it loud.

Nearby where Ron was standing, observing it all, there was a boy leaning over one of the desks, talking with a girl. Ron approached them. "Excuse me." He said. They both looked up. "Could you tell me who wrote this article?" He asked, throwing the news paper down on the desk.

The guy smirked at him. "Why do you want to know, _American_?" He sneered.

"Why does it matter?" Ron said.

The guy frowned. He stood, and pointed to the back of the room, to a glass door with "Editor" written on it. "That's the guy your looking for. Now if you don't mind, we are trying to have a conversation here! And take your paper, too." He said, throwing the folded paper at Ron.

Ron caught it easily. "Thank you." He said. The guy went back to leaning over the desk, talking to his classmate. As Ron walked by him, he bumped into him a little, creating just enough of a distraction for him to lift the guy's wallet out of his back pocket. "And thanks for this." He murmured when he was a safe distance away.

When he got to door of the Editor's office, he noticed a nearby recycling bin, and while nobody was looking, he pulled all of the bills out of the guy's wallet and stuffed them into his pocket before dumping the wallet in the bin. He put his hand on the door handle, but before opening it, he used his other hand to pull his sunglasses back down over his eyes.

He opened the door and stepped inside. He had to keep himself from laughing at what he saw. At the far end of the room was a down-sized desk, with a down-sized coffee pot, and a small little net book computer. From what he could gather with his eyes, he suspected the the smallness of the desk could probably attributed to the smallness of the person sitting behind it. _God, this guy's the size of an eight-year-old. _Ron thought as he looked at the midget at the desk, his face buried in his net book. The midget apparently hadn't heard Ron come in, because he hadn't looked up. Ron closed the door behind him, giving it a little extra force for a little extra noise.

"What is it?" The midget said without looking up from his computer.

Ron stepped up to the desk. "Did you write this?" He said, dropping the article in front of the midget.

The midget stopped typing at his computer and looked at the article. He reached across the desk and picked it up in between his the tips of his thumb and index finger, before pulling it toward him very slowly, like it was a disease or a bomb. He pulled it right up to the edge of the desk, right underneath his gaze. "Ah yes, I remember this. This was one of my first real articles with the paper here. Of course, it was the tabloids, so I guess how 'real' it is, is a matter of perspective." Then the midget's brow wrinkled. "So who are you and why do you have this?" He snapped.

"I'm..." Ron paused for a moment, thinking. "Mister Confidentiality, and you are...?"

The midget looked up at him for the first time. "Hm. Well in that case, you can call me 'Boss." The midget said.

_How about I call you 'Napoleon Complex.' _He thought. "Alright." He said. "Now, down to business. I want to know the names of the girls your wrote this article about."

"I'm sorry, Mister Confidentiality, but that is _Confidential._" The midget smirked. "However, it doesn't have to remain that way."

Ron chuckled. "Ha! Are you asking for a bribe?"

The midget shrugged. "Hey, you said yourself this was business, and it really wouldn't be business if I just _gave _you the information, now would it?"

Ron frowned. "Fine. Six-hundred Yen for both girl's first and last names."

The midget threw his head back and laughed. "Stupid American! Six-hundred yen wouldn't even buy me some half-decent tofu." He said.

Ron pulled the wad of stolen bills out of his pocket. He shuffled threw it, making a quick count. It looked like he had about twenty-thousand Yen. _Thank God for spoiled rich kids, and damn him for not making me one of them._ "Alright then, lets call it six-thousand yen." He said.

The midget didn't miss a beat. "Twelve-thousand for both names, six-thousand for one, and either way, a two-thousand yen charge for me not to ask where you got all that money from." He said.

Ron weighed his options. He didn't know when he was gonna need money again, and picking pockets was a risky business. Giving nearly 75% of his dough to this midget did not seem like a good idea, and he really only needed one of the names. "Only one of the girls was admitted to the hospital, right? Give me her name." He said, dropping 8,000 Yen on the table.

The midget frowned, but greedily snatched up the money. "Her name is Noriko Park." he said, counting the bills. "Nice girl, I have a few classes with her. She used to hang with this whole clique of weirdos, then this incident happened." He said, tapping the news paper with this finger.

This sparked Ron's curiosity. "What do you mean by 'weirdos?" Ron asked.

"A lot of things. The re-occurring joke is that we have a secret program at this school to educate psycho-ward out-patients. What ever it is, there's definitely something off about them, they keep to there close clique, don't talk to anyone else, and as far was we can tell, most of them don't even have regular classes with the rest of us."

"And this... Miss Park, She used to hand out with them, until this incident, do you know why?"

The midget shrugged. "When I interviewed her at the hospital, she didn't give any details on who attacked her and she didn't have any theories as to why she was attacked. All she told me was that 'he got away.' The part in the article about the rapist was just my forgery for the tabloids. But if you want my opinion, it was one of her psycho classmates that nearly did-her-in. Can you believe that the head of the second year class hangs out with that crowd?"

Ron half-smiled. "No, I sure can't. Do you know where I could find her."

"Well, you've already missed lunch, so it looks like your next chance to catch her would be dinner. She sits in the back of the dinning hall, near the fire exit. Always has a table all to herself."

"Thanks." Ron turned and walked toward the door. He got it half-way open when the midget spoke up again.

"Hey, you had better be grateful, I gave you a whole lot more than you paid for."

"Yeah thanks, Boss." he said.

…

The dining hall was massive. Ron thought that he could probably fit his entire apartment block within the space these people had for just their meals. Dinner was in full swing, people rushing around with trays of food, searching for a seat, shouting at each other, trying to make their voices louder than the thousand other voices in the room. He walked along the wall, toward the fire exit sign hanging high above the crowd, making it visible from nearly anywhere in the room. Sure enough, in the back right under the sign was a round table, with a lone girl sitting at it, quietly eating her food. She sat with her back to the corner, looking out at the rest of the room.

"Excuse me, are you Noriko Park?" He said.

She looked up quickly in surprise. "Um, yes. And who are you?" She said, looking at him sideways.

"A friend of a friend." he said, sitting down opposite her. "I have a question for you, Noriko, and excuse my directness, people don't know me for subtly."

Ron caught a whiff of fresh fear coming off of Noriko. He half expected her to run, or call the security. "Um, Okay, I guess. Fire away." She said. Then she seemed to become very interested in the scraps on her plate.

"Rin Okumura, Yukio Okumura, Konekomura, Renzo, Bon, Shiemi, Izumo..." Ron noticed that she squirmed a little at the last name. "... You were a bit of a clique with them, weren't you?"

She continued to look down at her plate. "I don't know if you could call it that. Izumo was really the only person I knew well."

"Then why did you hang out with them?"

It took a moment for her to formulate an answer. She took in a deep breath. "We were all in a... extracurricular program together."

"What kind of extracurricular program was it?" Ron was getting impatient, he started to put a little more force behind his words. Noriko was shaking, and breathing heavily. Ron waited for what seemed like a very long time, but no answer came. "Why did you quit that program, Noriko?" he pushed. He started tapping his fingers on the table. The smell coming from Noriko grew thicker. "What attacked you that night in the bathroom?" He saw a tear run down her cheek, it didn't faze him. "Tell me!" He said as he slammed his fist down on the table.

"Hey you, American!" A disembodied voice rang out. Ron thought it sounded slightly familiar, then a hand came down on his shoulder. "Your that douche bag that interrupted me and my girl friend in front of the library. Me and my friends have been looking all over for you, smart-ass!" Now Ron remembered where he had heard the voice before.

Ron smiled at girl across from him, daring her to say something. "You Japanese are all about honor, right?" He said, never taking his eyes off Noriko. "Are you really going to attack me from behind, while I'm sitting down, and defenseless? What would your girl friend think of that?" He said to the boy behind him.

There was silence for a moment. Ron felt the hand be removed from his shoulder. "Alright, stand up already so I can kick your ass!"

Ron calmly got up from his chair, and turned to face his attacker. Kind of a tall, scrawny guy, but he had three other tall, scrawny guys behind him, along with one very tall and very big guy. Behind the guy's back-up unit was decently large crowd of on-lookers, all whispering amongst each other. Ron thought he saw a couple of 1,000 yen bills passed between a few spectators that were right up front. _I hope you bet on the winner._ Ron could tell by the stance of his opponent that he didn't really know how to fight. First of all he was standing straight, one foot next to the other, a very unstable stance. Second, he had his fists up, but they were down by his chest, not up in front of his face like they should be.

"When ever you're ready." Ron said, with his hands shoved down his pockets.

"Aren't you gonna put 'em up?" The guy said.

"Put what up?" He asked with a smile.

"Don't mock me asshole!" The guy said.

Ron shook his head. "Look, I have places to be, so if you wouldn't mind getting on with it."

The guy snarled. "Screw you!" He yelled out.

The guy swung with his right. For Ron, it was simply a matter of tilting his head to the right and letting the punch fly over his left shoulder. While the guy's momentum was still carrying him forward, Ron quickly brought his fist out of his pocket and drove it into the guy's gut. And just like that, it was over. The guy crumpled onto the floor like a rag-doll. Ron took a step back in preparation for the inevitable. Sure enough, after a couple second of withering on the floor in pain, all of his dinner came right back up and all over the floor of the dining hall. Ron looked at the groupies the guy had brought along to fight for him. They had all taken a step back, and Ron's nose told him that they probably weren't going to try and avenge their fallen friend.

Ron turned around, back toward where Noriko was sitting, or... had been sitting. He just stared at the empty chair for a moment, replaying all of the things he had gone through today to get this far.

"GODDAMNIT!"

…

The sun was setting behind the skyline of the city as Izumo walked to her dorm. She had some extra work to finish up in Demon-Pharmacology, and had been unable to attend dinner as a result. Her stomach grumbled. _God I'm hungry. All of the school shops will be closed now. Maybe I could get Rin to cook something for me. _But she immediately shook off that thought. She wouldn't be able to bring herself to ask Rin for anything. She stopped for a minute to watch the golden glow of the sun peak through the cracks in the city skyline. She normally wasn't one to admire such things, but it had been a particularly nice day.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and broke her trance. Normally, she didn't answer her phone at all, and would just let it go to voice mail, but when she saw Noriko's number on the screen, she picked up without hesitation.

"Hey Noriko, what's going on?"

There was a moment of silence, then "I'm scared, Izumo."

"Huh? What's going on, Noriko?"

"Izumo, do you remember why I quit the cram school last year, when I was attacked by that ghoul?"

Izumo froze for a moment as her mind flashed back to that night, when she had lost control of her familiars and was unable to save her only friend. Then having to be saved by Rin, and being seen in her underwear by the entire cram school. The memory always sent a chill up her spine.

"Yes, I remember, what about it?" She said.

"Well, I was sitting down eating dinner in the cafeteria today when this guy came up to me, I had never seen him before, or even heard of him. But he knew, he knew all about it. He was interrogating me, right there in the lunch room, when this other guy came up and picked a fight with him. I was able to slip away while he was distracted."

It took Izumo a moment to process that. "What was his name and what did he want?' Izumo demanded.

"He just called himself 'a friend of a friend.' He wanted to know what it was that attacked me."

"Wait, you said he knew everything, than why would he be asking what attacked you?"

"I don't know. But he was angry, near the end he was yelling at me to tell him what it was that attacked me. He also knew that I quit the cram school after that."

"So he knew about the cram school?"

"I don't think so, but he knew that I stopped hanging around the cram school students after that."

Izumo shook her head, this wasn't making any sense. "Okay Noriko, calm down. What did he look like?"

"Uh... he was our age, he was tall, he had a pair of sunglasses on, near as I could tell he was Caucasian, and he had a funny accent, American I think."

Izumo was speechless. _No, it couldn't be, could it? That American foreign exchange student from last night?_

"Izumo." Noriko said before Izumo could formulate a response. "I'm really scared, he's probably still looking for me, could you walk me to my dorm?"

"Uh..." Izumo stumbled, slowly coming out of shock. "Yes, of course. Where are you?"

"I'm hiding in the east science building, but it will be closing soon."

_Shit, that's all the way on the other side of the campus. _"Alright, I will be right there." Izumo said.

She folded her phone and slipped it back into her pocket. She turned around and started in the direction of the east science building. A small pang of fear crept into her mind as she walked. _Goddammit Yukio, what have you gotten us all into now?_

…

According to the time on Ron's phone, he had been searching for Noriko for a little over half an hour. By all accounts the trail was dead; He didn't know where she was or even where he was, and it was starting to get dark out. He looked around to find himself in some kind of square or courtyard, illuminated by the vibrant color of the setting sun. In the center was a big fountain, sporting angles and ancient roman chariots, it was awful artwork and an eyesore. Surrounding this monstrosity was a few park benches and well-kept grass. He was the only one there at this hour, and the only sound that could be heard was the splashing coming from the fountain.

He walked over to the fountain and sat down the edge. He bowed his head and closed his eyes, listening to the water. It was peaceful, and that's what he needed at this moment, before all hell came down on his head. _Noriko will undoubtedly warn all of the other students I met last night. I will have some explaining to do then, but then again, so will they. _He stopped thinking about it, he really didn't want to think about it. He just sat there with his eyes closed and tried to enjoy the sound of the water.

"Ferus." A voice said. This voice was accompanied by that bitter smell he had encountered earlier today, when he had been in the presence of that dog. He looked up to see a man dressed like jester from the middle ages. His clothes looked as though one of the Care-Bears had gotten drunk and vomited all over him. Ron just kind of stared at him for minute, trying to process it all. "It's Latin, isn't it?" The strange man asked. "Meaning; wild, primal, inhuman. Correct?"

"Yeah, so?" Ron said.

"I don't think it suits you." The strange man said.

"Well then you obviously don't know me very well."

The strange man bent forward, leaning on his staff. His face got a lot closer to Ron's. "You've been busy. Running around, stealing things, pickpocketing, lying, bribing, fighting, interrogating. Your quite terrible at covering your own trail, Mister Confidentiality."

"That's because I don't make an attempt to. People knowing what I'm doing is none of my concern. Getting my questions answered is."

"If you have a question, why not just ask me?" The strange man raised an eyebrow.

"I have a feeling I wouldn't get a straight answer."

"You doubt me?"

"Yes, and I like my methods."

"Well how about this..." The man said, leaning back and throwing his hands in the air. "Lets make a wager."

"A wager for what?"

"I haven't quiet decided yet." The man put his arms down and suddenly got very close to Ron's face again. "Here are the rules, You win if you come out of this unscathed, but if you hurt yourself, hurt somebody else, or cause a considerable amount of damage to my property, I win. Simple enough?"

Ron stood, forcing the man to take a step back. He adjusted his sunglasses and smiled. "Have you ever heard of a city called Las Vegas, in the United States, Mister...?"

"Faust, John Faust, Principle of True Cross Academy. And yes, I have heard of Las Vegas."

Ron half-smiled. "In Las Vegas, Mister Faust, do you have any idea what they do to people who only take bets they know they can win." He said.

Faust frowned. "Is that a threat, Ferus?"

"No, Mister Faust, it's just an answer. But apparently you didn't get the message, so no, I will not be taking your wager. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to the dorm." Ron turned and began walking away from John Faust. He was almost to the gates that where the exit to the court yard when Faust spoke again.

"Any relation to Michel Antonio Ferus?" Faust called out.

Ron stopped, and without looking back he said "What is it to you?"

"Just curious." Now the voice of Faust was right in his ear again, as if he had covered the distance between them instantly, and somehow silently.

Ron turned to face Faust again, who had indeed somehow covered the distance instantly and silently, and was now mere inches from Ron's face again. "Well I'm 'just curious' about what your real name is. Maybe we could trade information?"

Faust scowled. "I have no idea what your talking about." He said defiantly.

"But it's the one thing you fear, isn't it? People finding out who you really are, what you've really done. Also, 'John Faust' is a horrible dupe name, much to European for this country." Ron held out his right hand. "So lets try this again. My name is Ronny Ferus, and you are...?"

For a few seconds, Faust didn't say anything, his eyes just darted back and forth between Ron's hand and his face. Finally he took Ron's hand. "Mephisto Pheles." He said, shaking Ron's hand.

Ron pulled away from hand shake. "And yes, Michel Antonio Ferus is my father. You know him?"

"I _knew _him. Worked with him once or twice. I must say, in his own way the man was an artist."

"An artist who works in misery maybe. That one word can sum up the better part of my early childhood."

Mephisto laughed. "Ah yes, all to appropriate."

"I have to ask, what was a government man like my father doing working with the principle of a private Catholic school?"

"I wasn't always the principle of this school, and the rest is confidential."

Now it was Ron's turn to laugh. "Not for long. I'm about to find out exactly what you've got going on at this school of yours."

"And when you do?"

"I don't know. I guess I'll just have to play it by ear." Ron turned and and began to leave again. "Oh, and Mister Pheles, a word of the wise, don't fuck with me. You've got a nice set up here, if some one were to ruin it for you, it would be a damn shame." And with that, he exited the court yard, leaving Mephisto standing in the square.

Ron was out of sight when Mephisto suddenly felt a new presence next to him. "Your suspicions were correct, brother, no doubt about it. So what are you going to do now?"

"I don't know, Amaimon. Maybe I won't do anything, and just let fate run its course."

"Don't mistake this for me caring one way or another, but are you sure that will be good for the health of all those involved?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm just saying, that the last time I was in the presence of his father, the man put a few hundred holes in me."

"He's not his father."

"You're right, brother, he's _worse_."

…

**Thanks for reading this far, and hopefully you will still read it, if I manage to return from the grave after second quarter grade reports come out.**

**Reviews are appreciated!**


	4. The American Devil is Innocent

…

Yukio didn't want to go to the staff meeting. Yukio wanted a cold glass of water, a pill for his head ache, and some peace and quiet. But he never had any of that, so why not go to the staff meeting?He finished compiling some class notes and other topics he wanted to bring up at tonight's meeting, and stood up from his desk. He had already cleaned and ironed his uniform, like he did every night, and he would probably make himself do it again after the meeting. The black exorcist's jacket lay on his bed, clean as the day it was given to him. He picked it off the bed and put it on, being careful not to wrinkle it. He looked at his watch, and saw that he was already a minute late. "Crap!" He said, and was about to reach under his bed, where he kept his pistols and his rig, when he saw motion near the doorway.

"Going out?" A voice said.

Yukio looked up to see Ron standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. "Uh, yeah. Honor student meeting." He said. _That lie is gonna get really old soon. _He thought.

"Gone long?" Ron said.

Yukio was getting antsy, he needed to leave, but he wasn't supposed to go anywhere without his weapons. _Shit, it's not like I can grab my rig and my guns from under my bed while Ron is looking right at me! _"No, not really. Just forty-five minutes." he said.

"I trust your brother will be making dinner?"

_Pleas, leave! _"Of course. Will you be joining us?"

"I think so." Ron grinned. "So I guess I will see you when you get back."

"Yeah." _Please, please leave! _Yukio looked at his wrist watch. He needed to get going right _now. _He looked back up at Ron, who was still standing in the doorway, watching him. _Screw it, I'm only gonna be gone forty-five minutes anyway. _"Looks like it's time for me to get going." Ron stepped back out into the hall as Yukio approached, giving him enough room to pass.

"See ya." Ron said.

Yukio waved in response and smiled. Normally, he would hang a left out of his dorm room and go down the hall toward the janitor's closet, where there was a lock in which he could use one of his magic keys, but that was yet another thing he couldn't just whip out right in front of Ron. So he turned right and headed toward the stairs. As he walked, he could feel Ron's eyes on the back of his head.

Yukio looked at his watch again when he reached the bottom floor. He was already late. "Shit." In order to cover his tracks, Yukio had originally planned to leave the dorm entirely and make his way to one of the locked education buildings where he could use his key, but he didn't have time. _It wont matter that he doesn't see me walking away from the dorm, it's dark out, so he wouldn't be able to see me anyway. Even if he is looking. _So Yukio turned left and headed toward the first floor janitor's closet.

After fumbling with his huge key ring for a minute, Yukio got a hold of the cram school keys and shoved it into the lock of the janitor's closet. The door opened and the walls of the cram school stood before him. He walked in and made sure to close the door tight behind him. From there it was just a couple of steps to his class room, where the staff meetings were always held, on account of it being the only room with a podium and a raised platform.

The door was open, and when Yukio stepped inside, he could see that the rest of the teachers were already there, sitting up straight and orderly at the tables with their day's notes in front of them, and ready to begin. All except Shura, who was leaning back in her chair with her hands behind her head and her feet up on the table. Nobody dared scold her.

"Ah! Mister Okumura, nice of you to join us!" A voice called from the front of the room. Yukio's head turned to see Mephisto standing behind the podium at the front. Yukio was a little taken aback, Mephisto never, _ever _attended the staff meetings, let alone spoke at them. "Please, take your seat, we have much to discuss."

Without saying a word, Yukio proceeded toward the only empty seat, next to Shura, but kept his eyes on Mephisto. He put his suitcase down on the table and took his seat. As he sat, Shura punched him in the shoulder. "Leave it to you, four-eyes, to let the wolf into the chicken coupe." She said.

"Huh, what the hell are you talking about?" Yukio said.

"Please, Miss Kirigakure, hold your tongue for a moment." Mephisto said.

"Hold her tongue about what?" Yukio yelled at Mephisto. "You're starting to freak me out."

Shura just shook her head at him. Mephisto sighed. "It's about your exchange student." Mephisto said. "Ronald Ferus."

"Yeah, what about him?" Yukio said, raising an eyebrow.

Mephisto paused for moment, trying to chose his words carefully. "We believe he is dangerous." In retrospect, he probably should have thought about those words for a little bit longer.

Yukio just stared at Mephisto for a moment. Then he started to chuckle, which quickly grew into a full blown fit of laughter. "Your... kidding me... right?" he got out in between spasms of laughter. "Ron … Dangerous?" He couldn't help himself, it was just so absurd, the guy had been there for one day and had spent the entire time in the dorm sleeping, right? "You've... got to be... pulling my chain." Then Yukio noticed that nobody was laughing with him, and even Shura was giving him a kind of annoyed, angry look. He quickly stopped himself. "Oh my God, your not serious, are you?" Yukio said, straightening his glasses.

"You doubt me?" Mephisto said.

"Well." Yukio folded his arms. "I think your accusations are pretty poorly founded. He's only been here one day, and as far as I know he hasn't even left the dorm. I know he's a bit different than what... _most _of us are used to," he said, eying Shura. "but that doesn't mean he's _dangerous!_"

"How do you know he was in the dorm all day?" Mephisto asked.

"Because he told me."

Shura snorted. "Long story short, he wasn't." she injected.

Yukio felt a growl erupt in his throat. "Yeah, so wha..."

"Tell me something," Mephisto said, cutting Yukio off. "Do you have your weapons with you?"

Yukio looked down at the table, not wanting to meet Mephisto's eye. "No." He said.

"And why not?"

"Because Ron came into the room and... and watched me. I couldn't get my weapons from under my bed because he would have seen them." The Yukio's eyes grew wide as something clicked in his head. "Wait, you don't think that..."

"That he did that on purpose so that you would leave your weapons behind? Yes, I do think that." Mephisto said, cutting Yukio off again.

"How could he have known that they were there?" Yukio asked.

"I was just getting to that part." Mephisto said. He turned his attention from Yukio and looked out to the whole room of exorcists and teachers. "Now, are you all familiar with Fear Demons?"

…

"God damn it!" Rin shouted. "Even if I could see it in this darkness, it wouldn't do me any good." Rin said as he squinted at the open bible. "I hate scripture!"

Bon laughed. "It usually means you are brave if you try something you know you're going to fail at. However, I doubt that is the case here."

"Ha! Good one, Bon." Renzo said.

Rin ignored them and continued squinting through the darkness of the early night. He had asked Bon to come to his dorm after school and help him with some scripture that had been troubling him. After some pleading, Bon had grudgingly agreed to go with him, and of course, Renzo and Konekomaru were close behind.

"How much further do you think?" Konekomaru said. "It's hard to judge in this darkness."

"Well that depends on how long it takes Rin to get us lost." Renzo said.

"Hey!" Rin said, turning back to look at them. "I know exactly where I am going!"

"I'll believe that when we get there." Bon said.

_What is this writing? _Rin heard Kuro's voice echo in his mind. He turned his head to look at the the familiar, sitting on his shoulder and peering down at the bible.

"It's scripture, Kuro, and I don't think you should be reading it." Rin said.

_Huh, why not? _Kuro's tone had grown annoyed.

"Well, because..." Rin paused for a moment thinking. "A demon reading scripture is like a pig eating bacon."

_Why shouldn't pigs eat bacon? _Kuro asked.

"That doesn't even make any sense." Bon commented.

_Agreed. _Kuro said.

"... Pigs shouldn't eat bacon because it would be cannibalism, so your analogy doesn't work at all." Bon continued.

_Bacon is made from pigs? _Kuro practically shouted at him.

"AH! Shut up, the both of you!" Rin said, before burying his nose in the bible again. Kuro and Bon looked at each other, shrugged, and went back to minding their own business. "If I don't get this memorized by tomorrow's class I'm screwed, so nobody interrupts me until we get to the dorm." And it was quiet... for about ten seconds.

"RIN!" A voice shouted.

Rin could feel the heat building up inside of him. "WHAT IS IT NOW?" He yelled out in frustration. But when he looked up from the bible to see who had interrupted him, he was met with a slap across the face.

"Don't use that tone with me, Okumura!" Izumo said. Of course, Rin didn't know it was Izumo that had said this, as he was to busy concentrating on the side of his face that had recently erupted into sharp, stinging pain.

"Jesus Christ!" Rin said, still holding his face.

Then Bon smacked him upside the head. "Hey, don't take his name in vain!"

"What the fuck!" Rin yelled.

Then Renzo decided he wanted to get in on the fun too, so he came up behind Rin and sucker-punched him in the back of the head. "Don't use that kind of language in public!" He said.

Rin had had enough, he threw his head back, looked up into the black sky and let it all out. "AHHHH..." The sudden outburst of noise made Kuro leap off Rin's shoulder in surprise and sent him scurrying up a nearby tree.

It was hard to tell just how long Rin held this yell, but it can be said that he had a lot of breath in him. Once all of his air had run out, he took the bible he was holding and threw on the ground, which created a surprisingly loud cracking noise, and then began to repeatedly curb-stomp the book into the cement. Everyone made sure to give him enough room, and didn't dare interrupt, after all, it was better for him to vent on the book than on one of them. When he finally stopped, he was huffing and puffing and had to put his hands on his knees to steady himself. Pages from the bible floated through the night air and the cover had been cracked all the way through along the spine.

"I believe that is... _was _the school's bible." Konekomaru said.

Renzo chuckled. "I wonder if they'll miss it." He said.

Izumo ignored the banter of the boys and approached Rin, who was still catching his breath. "Rin." She waited a moment for Rin to look up at her. "We need to talk about Ron Ferus, that exchange student."

"Huh?" Was all Rin could muster while he was trying to re-fill his system with oxygen.

Izumo took a deep breath. "He knows." She said.

There was silence after that, everybody just kind of turned and looked at Izumo for a long moment, thinking about what she had said.

Bon was the first to speak up. "What do you mean 'he knows'?" Bon asked.

"I mean he knows about _us_, or at least I think he does."

Bon's forehead wrinkled. "You _think _he does, that doesn't tell us much, and it also doesn't seem to be a very good reason to just appear out of nowhere and slap Okumura across the face."

"Yeah!" Rin said.

"Shut up!" Izumo and Bon yelled at Rin simultaneously.

"I have to agree with Bon." Konekomaru said. "Even if he does know, it could just mean that he's in a cram school in America, and is training to become and exorcist like us. No reason to overreact."

"No, he's definitely not in a cram school, I don't even think he knows about demons and exorcism." Izumo said.

Bon laughed. "Than what the fuck are you talking about? He knows about 'us.' How could he if doesn't even know what exorcism is?"

"No, you don't know the whole story." Izumo shook her head, looked down at the ground and pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried to come up with a good way to explain it. "Do you remember Noriko, my Korean friend who was in the cram school last year?" She said, looking up.

"Yeah, of course." Rin said.

"Yeah, so what?" was Bon's response.

"Ron found her today in the dining room, during dinner. He knew about the reason she quit the cram school, he knew about what happened with the _ghoul_." Izumo said, giving Bon a hard look.

Bon's facial expression went from a smirk to a look of annoyance. The boys realized it was probably time to start taking Izumo seriously and huddled up around her.

"Okay, so he knew about the ghoul. Why was he talking to Noriko?"

"I don't think 'talking' is the right word, more like interrogating her. He was pressing her about exactly what it was that attacked her."

"But you said that he already knew about the ghoul." Renzo pointed out.

"No, he knew that _something _attacked her, and he knew it was the reason she stopped hanging around us."

"When you say 'us', you mean the cram school students?" Rin asked.

"Yeah." Izumo said.

"Yeah, that is strange." Konekomaru said as he adjusting his glasses. "What really gets to me is why he would be so interested in exactly what it was that attacked her."

"And how he found out about her." Bon said.

"And how he knew about the incident in the first place." Rin said.

Izumo folded her arms. "Look, all I know is that this prick really scared my friend, and right now I just want to know why, and then I want to kick his ass."

Bon nodded in agreement. "Is Noriko safe now?" He asked.

"Yeah, I walked her back to her dorm after she called me and explained the whole incident. I tried to call Rin, but his phone went straight to the answering machine."

Rin scratched the back of his head and grinned sheepishly. "Sorry, I need to top-off my minutes." he said.

"Well, we're all here now," Renzo said, throwing his fist in the air. "so why don't we go pay him a little visit?" Renzo suggested.

"Yeah!" The rest of them shouted.

At this, Kuro jumped out of his tree and landed, or crashed, right on top of Rin's head. "Gahhh!" Rin shouted in surprise. _Your not going anywhere without me! _Rin heard in his mind. "Yeah, yeah, alright Koru, just don't do that again!"

They rushed toward the boy's dorm, blindly fallowing the way Rin _thought _that they should go. But after about five minutes of running, Bon was starting to wonder if Rin really _had _gotten them lost.

As if on cue "Were almost there!" Rin said. And sure enough, the upper levels of the dormitory had come into view as a dark silhouette against the night sky.

When they reached the front door, Renzo shouted "Wait!" and all eyes turned on him, Rin already had his hand on the door, and was giving Renzo an impatient look. "Shouldn't we have a game plan or something, do we even know what we are going to do?"

"I know what exactly what _I'm _going to do." Izumo said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out two slips of paper with summoning circles drawn on them, along with a sharp needle.

Rin recoiled a bit at this. "Izumo, what are you doing? It's not like we're gonna murder..."

"Shut up!" She shouted, spreading her blood across the papers. "You have two options: hold him down, or stand back and watch!" She recited her magic verse at light speed, and the two white foxes appeared before her. "This asshole hurt my friend, I don't want to kill him, he wouldn't feel anything if I killed him." She proceeded forward, familiars in tow. Every one made sure not to get in her way. Instead of opening the door when she got to it, she kicked it, damn near ripping it off its hinges. "Well, are you coming in or not?" She said, without giving them a moment to think before she kept moving, running up the stairs.

"Ah shit, come on guys, lets go after her." Bon said. The boys rushed after Izumo, catching up to her by the time she had reached the second floor stair well. They didn't speak, and they didn't try to stop her, they just kept pace with her as she ascended the stairs. The group turned left when they reached the floor where the Okumura brothers lived, and raced down the hallway.

"Where is he?" Izumo said, as they approached the cafiteria.

"Right here." Ron said.

They all slid to a stop at the sound of his voice, right at the entrance to the dorm dining room, and there he was, at the back of the room. He was leaning up against the counter in front of the kitchen area, head down, eyes closed, thinking. In one hand he held a glass of water which he sipped from, and in the other he repeatedly tossed a small object up into the air before catching it again in the same hand. It was weird, he seemed almost tranquil, while the rest of them were all hyped on anger and adrenalin, ready to blow.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rin watched Kuro's fur stand straight up, and then he took a step back, showing her teeth in the direction of Ron. Anyone who knows anything could recognize this as a very defensive stance. He looked over to Izumo's familiars, who had copied this pose. _What's wrong, Kuro? _He thought, astrally projecting his voice into the mind of his familiar. There was a pause, then: _Whatever you do, Rin, don't attack him. _Kuro thought back to him. Before Rin could ask why, Ron spoke up again.

"You know, what is really so fuckin' bad about normality and mediocrity? When I heard about this place I thought, 'What could possibly be more normal, and simple, than a private Catholic school?' But I've never been that lucky, so why stop the trend now?" He opened his eyes and looked up at the group on the other end of the dining room. "You people have a lot to answer for." He said.

Rin could feel the heat in his finger tips. "_We _have a lot to answer for? Says the guy that goes around beating guys up and harassing girls for no reason! And what is it exactly we have to answer for, hmm?" He said, his tone growing hotter and hotter.

"Want me to name it all off for you?" Ron said, and with that, he tossed the small object he had been holding across the room to Rin, who caught it with one hand, maintaining eye contact with Ron the whole time. He opened his fist to reveal one of his brother's silver-coated bullets. He just stared at it for a minute, in shock. "The bullets, the guns, the uniforms..." Ron said, counting the items on his fingers. "...while we're at it, why don't we add two tailed cats and tattooed foxes to the list as well." He said, motioning toward the familiars. "But most of all, you've got to answer for that sword..." He pointed his index finger at Rin. "...and that girl who nearly died in your bathroom almost a year ago."

"Bullshit!" Rin said. "What are you after?"

Ron put his glass of water on the counter, and stood up straight. He sighed, and rolled his head from side to side, cracking his neck. "I'm not a fool, Okumura. For some reason, I've been framed as the bad guy here, but the truth is, all I want from you is an answer, a _reason _for all of this _crap _that I've found out today. I want to know what's going on here, with you, your brother, all of your friends, and your principle..." He paused for moment, letting them absorb that. "...Because, honestly, this shit scares me, Rin."

"Who are you?" Bon demanded.

Ron shook his head. "Haven't you gotten this through your thick skull yet? I _am _Ron Ferus. I _am _a poor, inner city kid from the United States. I'm _not _some super-secret agent, or a villain, and most of all, I _am not _here to hurt you or your friends, nor do I have any intention of doing so." When Ron saw that they had just responded to this with looks of uncertainty, he continued. "You want to know about me, want to know who I am? My mom died when I was born, my father was murdered when I was ten years old, I go to a crappy public high school, I blow a lot of trees, skip a lot of classes, watch a lot of day-time TV, and have lifted hundreds-of-dollars worth of merchandise from the gas station around the corner of my apartment building. There! Is that enough?"

Bon scowled. "None of that makes me want to trust..."

"I don't want your fucking trust." Ron snapped, cutting Bon off. "I just want you to believe me."

"Well I for one _don't _believe you!" Rin said. "Maybe you'll spit the truth up while I'm pounding it out of you!" Rin took his sword off his back and stood it up on the ground, letting it's bag fall down around it, exposing the weapon. _Rin, no! _Koru's voice echoed in his head. Rin put his hand on the handle, but stopped, just as he was about to pull the sword from it's sheath. He stood like that, paused, for a moment while he more closely studied Ron. "Tell me this, are you human?" Rin asked, taking his hand off the grip, and holding his sword at his side.

Ron sighed. "You know who you remind me of?" He said, seeming to ignore Rin's question. He took a casual step forward toward the group at the other end of the room. "This kid that I knew just about a year ago. Now, I don't know how bad of a bullying problem you have here, in your schools, but in my school it's kind of fucked up. This particular kid was picked on a lot, and by one particular person; this hockey player guy who thought he was the greatest shit to hit planet Earth." He was about half way across the cafiteria now, still slowly moving forward. "So one day, his kid has had enough, so he comes over to where I'm sitting at lunch, he sits down next to me and says 'Ron, I'm gonna kill that mother fucker.' and I said 'You do that.' I didn't really know what to think of it at the time, he sounded pretty serious, so I thought 'Maybe I should warn somebody' but you know what, I wanted to see that hockey-playing fuck go down just as much as this kid who was supposedly going to do it. So the next day, sure enough, this kid shows up with a god-damn Kalashnikov, doesn't shoot anybody, he just wants to know where this hockey-player is. He finds him hiding out in the gym. This hockey-player gets down on his knees and bags for his life with the barrel of this rifle pressed up against his fore-head. He thought for sure he was gonna die. But he wasn't, you know why? Because the kid didn't know how to take the safety off the gun, and even if he did, his finger would-a never touched the trigger." Ron had reached Rin now, He slowly raised his index finger and lightly jabbed it into Rin's ribs. All of a sudden, the flame in Rin's finger tips was extinguished, and an overwhelming, paralyzing, unnatural cold overcame him, he couldn't move. "You remind me of that kid, because just like him, your in the moment, and you have the tools to do the dirty work, but even if you knew how to use 'em, you'd never have the will to." Ron removed his finger from Rin's chest, and the cold slowly began to fade. "Now, getting back to your question... it is kind an odd question, isn't it?" He said, as he started to move away from the group, down the hall. "All it really did was raise even more questions. Why would you ask it? I look human, don't I? Last time I checked, I was human. But you obviously must know someone who isn't." He was past the dining room now, making his way down the hall way, about twenty feet away from the group, when he swung back around to look at them. "However, it looks like none of you want to answer my questions, so why should I waste anymore of my time answering yours?" He turned back around and headed in the direction of his dorm room.

Now the cold was almost all the way gone and the heat was returning to Rin's finger tips. That cold he had felt when Ron had touched him had been unnatural, and the way that it had subdued his flames with so little effort was frightening. It had paralyzed him with... fear. Now the heat was really growing inside of him, and he could feel it wanting to burst out through his chest as he became more angry. Ron was hiding something, and he was dangerous. "You lie!" Rin shouted. He had had enough, he drew his sword, and erupted in blue flame. He didn't hesitate, he darted across the few feet in between himself and Ron, and swung the sword down on him with all of his might.

But Ron swung around and caught it.

He caught the sword... by the blade.

…

**Thanks for reading! And don't hate me for the cliff-hanger.**

**P.s. For all of you who don't know, "Blowing trees" is slang for smoking weed (Marijuana).**


	5. The American Devil Defends Himself

**A word of warning,I am absolutely awful at writing action sequences, but the fallowing is my best shot.**

...

In a way, it was kind of like looking at a painting. Everyone was still, seemingly frozen in time, and silence filled the room. The only thing that moved was the flames that surrounded Rin's body and his sword. When Rin had swung at Ron, he had swung straight downward, hoping to catch him on the top of the head. But Ron had whipped around grabbed the blade with both hands before Rin had even brought it all the way down. Rin was frozen, not even "stunned" could describe how he felt at that moment. He thought he was going to go into shock.

"Wha... but... how?" Rin stammered. A single drop of blood from Ron's right hand trickled down the blade, over the guard, down the handle, and over Rin's hand. Suddenly, it seemed as though the handle of the sword had turned into ice. It was freezing cold and slippery. Rin felt his hands getting numb, and after a couple of seconds he couldn't hold onto it anymore, and they just slipped off.

The silence came again. It was quiet the sight to see; Rin, ablaze, standing in shock, and Ron, holding the flaming the sword, with a small pool of blood from his hands gathering on the floor. They shared the same facial expression of absolute bewilderment.

Then Ron did something unexpected. "Oh God!" He said, dropping the sword to the floor at his feet. "I'm so, so sorry." He said as he threw his hands up in surrender. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. I'm am _sorry,_man. Here, take it back!" He kicked the sword toward Rin.

Rin however, was not paying attention to the words coming out of Ron's mouth. All he could focus on was the small bit of blue flame that had remained in the palms of Ron's hands when he had dropped the sword. _How can he not feel the burning in his hands? _Rin thought, because Ron still appeared to be totally oblivious to it. Then, it was as if the flame squeezed it's way into the cuts on his hands, and into his blood stream. "Wha... what?" Ron sturred, noticing the burning blue squirming under his skin. In his veins, shocks of blue erupted so bright that they were clearly visible through his skin. His entire body jerked each time the flames flashed. It looked as though they were moving up his arms toward his head.

"Jesus, what's happening to him?" Bon said from behind Rin.

Then the flames reached his head. Ron brought up his hands and grabbed at his own face. He began hyperventilating and started clawing at his eyes. Then came the screaming. "AAAHHHAHHHHHHHHHHHAHHAHH HELP ME! AHH..." He crumpled to his knees in pain, and a white furred tail sprouted from behind him.

Then, to the surprise of everyone (excluding Ron, who would not have been interrupted by a hydrogen bomb), Yukio and about ten uniformed exorcists suddenly emerged from the Janitor's closet, practically knocking it off its hinges. Yukio, who appeared to be leading the group, had to take a moment to study the scene before him; Rin ablaze, the sword at his feet, and Ron, with his new tail, bent over on the floor in crippling pain... and screaming, don't forget the screaming.

"Christ, what the hell happened!" He yelled at Rin from down the hallway. But before Rin had time to answer, the screaming abruptly stopped. All eyes turned to Ron again. After a moment, he slowly removed his hands from his face, and stood. The entire group of students recoiled at the sight of his face, and Izumo let out a noise that was somewhere between a scream and a yelp. Yukio didn't understand why, as Ron was facing away from him and the other exorcists at the time.

"Oh God, what the hell is that?" Renzo said.

Yukio was getting impatient, he wanted to know what was going on. Ron wasn't human, at least not entirely, that much had been made apparent by the tail and the pointy-tipped ears that Yukio could see from where he was, but that didn't explain why the students had reacted the way they did.

"Ron, turn around, and do it slowly!" Yukio ordered. "If you don't want to hurt us, than we don't want to hurt you!"

Ron just stood motionless for a moment. Then, Yukio could see some kind of white smoke or steam start to arise from are Ron's facial area and from the tuft at the end of his tail. Yukio heard a _click-clank _noise as one of the exorcists behind him worked the bolt on his their Sig. At this, Ron quickly whipped around to face the source of the noise, giving Yukio a glimpse of what had startled the cram school students. The first thing Yukio noticed, was that he had no eyes, just big empty sockets that lead into a void of blackness. Then there was his mouth, which had been filled with jagged teeth the size and shape of small daggers. Sharp claws had replaced his finger nails, and similar ones could be seen protruding from holes in his sneakers. That white smoke continued to rise from his nostrils, the corners of his mouth and his eye sockets, slowly filling the space around him. It was terrifying. Yukio heard a lot of clanking metal as all the exorcists behind him raised there weapons and pointed them at Ron.

"Please don't point those at me." Ron said.

Yukio was shocked. The voice that Ron had spoken with, it was his own voice, it wasn't layered like it would be if he was possessed. Also, he hadn't said it in a smug tone, in fact, he sounded very defensive, almost scared. Then an incredibly loud _CRACK _rang out through the air as somebody behind Yukio fired their weapon.

"Jesus, what the hell are you doing?" Yukio said, spinning around and grabbing the smoking rifle from the guy that had fired the shot. "Are you fucking mad, we have friendlies down range!" But the guy didn't seem to notice Yukio yelling in face, he was fixated on Ron, eyes wide, mouth open. "Get the hell out of here before you hurt someone!" Yukio said. But the guy just pointed past Yukio, toward Ron. Yukio turned back around to see that Ron had caught the bullet between his two front teeth. "How in the hell..." Yukio began to say.

Before Yukio could finish, Ron spit the bullet back out. What was strange about this is that he spit it back out at approximately the same speed at which it had been traveling when he caught it, and along the exact the same trajectory. The small piece of sliver-coated lead entered the exorcist that had fired it right below the arm pit, went straight through, and nailed the guy that had been standing behind him in the shoulder, sending them both spinning to the ground. Yukio watched this with wide eyes. When he turned back to face Ron, the fear demon had already drawn Yukio's own pistols. Then, without warning, he began to fire. If someone had been watching from afar, they might have admired just how inhumanly quickly Ron was able to draw the pistols and fire them. Of course, expecting any one of the exorcists to appreciate this would be like expecting someone to appreciate the custom paint job on a car that is in the process of running them over. The pistols erupted like machine guns, and the unit of exorcists that had come through the janitor's closet seemed to all simultaneously fall in a mist of red. Rin watched in slow motion as one final bullet caught Yukio in the thigh, sending him tumbling to the floor.

"You Son of a bitch!" Bon shouted. "Your going to pay for that!" Bon balled up his fists and Renzo pulled his fighting staff from under his jacket. "Come on Shima!" The two charged. Ron swung around and fired a single bullet, hitting Renzo in the upper leg and sending him tumbling to the floor. Then he turned his guns to Bon, but it was to late to shoot him. Bon was already past the muzzle of the pistol, and swung a punch at Ron's face. Ron ducked, the punch flying over his head. Then he rebounded back up, sending him a good five feet in the air, where he planted both his feet into Bon's chest, sending Bon tumbling backward. "Goddamn you!" Bon said as he picked himself up off the floor. Bon ran at Ron again. This time, Ron tossed one of his pistols in the air, catching it by the barrel, brandishing it like a club. When Bon was within his reach, Ron pistol whipped in the side of the head. The force sent Bon into the wall, hard. When his left shoulder connected with the concrete there was a sickening "POP" noise before Bon fell to the floor, motionless.

Without a moments hesitation, Izumo yelled "Get him!" Ordering her familiars into battle. The white foxes jumped and flew through the air toward Ron. They only got about half way to him before a great deal of lead eviscerated them to dust. "Shit!" Izumo said, taking a step back. "What do we do now?"

Then Rin heard his brother moan in pain from the other end of the hallway. He looked at Bon, wounded and unconscious. He looked at Renzo, laying on the ground, holding his wounded leg with tears seeping from his eyes. Then he turned to look at Izumo and Konekomaru, at how scared they were. Rin thought that this may be the first time that he had seen Izumo this afraid. He looked down at his sword, lying on the ground near his feet. "How dare you hurt my friends!" He yelled. He began to reach for his sword.

"No you don't." Ron said. Rin looked back up to see the barrel of one of the pistol's right in his face. _Shit! How did he cover the distance so quickly? _Rin thought. Ron put his foot on the handle of the sword, and in one swift motion, kicked it through the window they were standing next to. "I would go get that if I were you. Somebody might get suspicious if they see a sword coated in blue flame just in the middle of the street at this time of night."

Rin took a second to study Ron's face more closely. _Jesus! It might actually be difficult for him to talk with those enormous teeth! But then again, who needs diplomacy when you could literally bite someone's head off? And his eye sockets, there's NOTHING in them; it's like looking into a star-less night sky. _Then Ron backed up, while keeping the gun trained on Rin's head. He stepped past Bon and Renzo, and then over the heap of wounded exorcists. He stopped once he had gotten to the door of the janitors closet, which had remained open, and still led into the cram school. "Lets see where this leads." he said, stepping through the door and closing it behind him.

As soon as the door closed, sealing the portal between the cram school and boy's dorm, a large blade buried itself in the door mere inches from Ron's head. Ron turned to look at his attacker. Of course "look" can not be used in the literal sense here, as Ron did not have any eyes, but he was able to smell his attacker, which painted a pretty clear picture in his head.

"Hello, Shura." Ron said, facing the exorcist hanging off the end of the blade.

"That was a warning shot, Buster." She said. "Put down the guns, I don't want to send you to your father but I swear to god I will."

Ron barred his teeth at her. "I'm sorry Shura... But you know better than anyone that I have to finish what your friends started." And with that, he swung around and planted his foot into her stomach, causing her and her sword to fly back.

Shura landed effortlessly on her feet. "Just like your dad, Ferus, always going for the cheap shot." She brandished her sword in a defensive position, waiting for the attack.

"Only the dead fight fair." Ron said, reloading his pistols.

"Funny, I doubt you've killed anyone yet." Shura said.

"Don't tempt me." He raised his pistols and fired three shots, but Shura was already gone by the time they reached her. She darted left, running up the wall and then hoping over the other side. Ron fired again, but Shura jumped back over to the left wall, and the bullets impacted the age-old concrete were Shura's legs used to be.

"Your gonna have to be quicker than that!" Shura said.

Ron took in a deep breath, and when he breathed back out, white steam poured from his mouth, creating a deep, white-out mist that Shura suddenly found herself jumping right into. She landed right on the spot where Ron had been standing just a moment ago, but there was nothing there, nothing but the white steam. It was like somebody had dropped a smoke grenade; Shura couldn't see her hand in front of her face. She realized that she was totally turned around, and had no idea how to get out of the steam cloud. Suddenly, she became very cold, and started to shiver and lose her balance. "Goddammit Ferus! It would be like you to hide!"

"Who's hiding?" Then, in a flash of black steal, something hard and metallic hit Shura across the face. She fell down, dropping her sword and watching it slide away into the mist as she hit the floor. She picked herself up immediately, but only got to a kneeling position before the cold steel once again appeared from the mist and struck her across the face. She caught herself before falling this time, and tried to stand again. This time the pistol came down right on top of her head, she remained motionless for a minute, dazed and dizzy, but she shook it off, and tried to stand again. "Stay down!" Ron said. This time, the pistol emerged from the smoke, and fired a single bullet which impacted Shura's left shoulder, sending her flying back. She passed out when she hit the ground.

Ron drew in a deep breath, sucking all of his steam back up. Now that that little annoyance was over, he took a minute to better observer were he was. It certainly wasn't a Janitor's closet. The ancient interior design made the whole place a little foreboding, not to mention how it seemed to continue on forever, into infinite blackness. Ron tucked the pistols into his waist and proceeded down the hall way, past all of the empty classrooms and supply closets. He sniffed the air.

"This place wreaks just like the dorm room and that girl. Same fear, same origin, same monsters. Now I just have to figure out where they are hiding them, and more importantly, why."

Then Ron caught of whiff of something powerful, and approaching quickly. He drew his pistols, and checked each to make sure there was a round in the chamber before pulling the hammers back. He waited in silence, guns at the ready. Then a door about thirty feet in front of him was literally blown off it's hinges by some kind of explosion. A blue light filled the hallway as Rin stepped through the threshold of the door, sword in hand.

Rin saw Ron, who had trained his guns on him, standing still but poised down the hallway from him. "You mother-fucker!" Rin said, pointing a menacing finger at Ron. "I'm gonna rip you limb from limb!"

That was all Ron needed. He fired a single shot, aimed directly at Rin's head. Time slowed down as Rin saw the bullet travel towards him, and more importantly, he saw where it was going. In a flash, he brought up his sword, and blocked the bullet, which broke into several pieces on impact and exploded around him. They both just kind of stood still for moment, trying wrap there minds around what had just happened. Ron growled, and fired another shot, this time aimed at Rin's chest area. The same thing happened; time slowed down, and Rin brought his sword into position to block the bullet, which deflected off to his left and and made a huge gash in the wall.

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Well, that makes this more complicated." he said. He brought both pistols to bare, and began to fire them in rapid succession. Rin blocked each one, his sword moving at light speed. As Ron fired, Rin advanced on him, shuffling forward as fast as he could while still maintaining his focus on blocking the bullets. As Rin neared him, Ron began to fire faster and faster, shooting more desperately, aiming for any possible body part that he could hit. But it did no good, Rin reached him just as he emptied the clips. Rin swung low and from the side, hoping to take out Ron's legs, but Ron jumped over the blade, managing to reload both the pistols before he returned to the ground. He aimed one at Rin's head, but Rin ducked under it just as Ron fired. As he ducked, Rin jabbed at Ron's stomach, Ron side stepped it and the blade only cut air. Before Ron could bring his guns to bare on him, Rin rolled forward, getting behind Ron, and swung down with all of his might at the back of Ron's head. But Ron turned, blocking the attack by crossing his pistols and catching the blade between the barrels. Then Ron fired a single shot out of both pistols, which didn't hit Rin, but that wasn't the point. The barrels of the guns had been very close to Rin's ears when they had been fired, so he should have temporarily deafened and disoriented. But really all it did was make Rin even angrier. He brought all of his strength and his weight down on his sword, which was still caught between Ron's pistols. This force pushed Ron back a good ten feet from Rin.

Now it was a stand off. They stared at each other for a few moments, waiting for the other to make a move. _Damn! _Rin thought. _I hate to admit it, but it looks like we're equally matched. I can't get a hit on him and he can't get a hit on me. The only way I can take him down is if I take a hit. _Yukio's words sounded in Rin's head, something he had told him last year after he had defeated the ghoul: "You have to stop using your body as a front-line defense." Yukio had said. "You'll get yourself killed." _I'm sorry Yukio, but sometimes you have to take chances. _And with that, Rin charged at Ron. Sure enough, a shot rang out, but Rin didn't make an attempt to block it. Rin closed his eyes, waiting for the stinging pain as he charged forward. The excruciating pain from his shoulder, where he had taken the bullet, got to his brain just as he pierced Ron's flesh. Rin opened his eyes to see that he had got Ron good in the lower left abdomen, probably just an inch or two from the stomach. When he looked up to see Ron's face, it wasn't twisted in pain like it should have been. He just look kind of surprised. Then Rin twisted the sword, and the surprise was quickly replaced by a look of horrible agony.

But then, Ron brought one of the pistols up, and placed the barrel on the center of Rin's chest before firing three shots from point-blank range. The last thing Rin saw before he blacked out was Ron dropping the pistols and falling forward on the sword, burying it deeper into his chest.

…

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	6. The American Devil Learns the Truth

"So, what is he?" Bon asked.

Yukio looked back at Bon, standing behind him. He was beat up pretty badly; a bandage around his head and a temporary splint holding up his dislocated arm. Behind him, on a bench, sat Izumo, Konekomaru, and Renzo, all in similar states of poor health and disrepair. Then Yukio looked back through the one-way glass into the interrogation room. Ron was tied to chair, and appeared to still be unconscious, but the lack of eyes made it difficult to tell.

"A very dangerous demon, who can smell fear, and relentlessly exploits it." Yukio said. "Or at least partially."

"And the other part?" Bon said.

"Human, much like Rin and myself."

"Not even you and Rin are that ugly." Shura said. It was the first time she had spoken thus far. After she had woken up, she had refused further medical attention and headed straight toward the observation deck of the interrogation room, where she had simply resided herself to the dark corner until this moment.

"You know, you really should go back to the hospital." Yukio said, studying the bruises on Shura's face. "It is however nice to see that you at least let them stitch up that wound." He motioned toward the bandages wrapped around her left shoulder.

Shura shook her head. "No, I have to be here." She said, scowling through the glass at Ron. "It's incredibly lucky nobody was killed or permanently maimed when he went berserk."

"That wasn't luck." All heads turned to see Mephisto standing in the doorway of the observation deck. "That was by design." he finished, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.

"What do you mean 'by design'?" Yukio asked.

"Fear demons exploit the fears and emotions of there victims for thrills, they have no use for someone who cannot feel fear, a dead body, for example. If he had wanted to kill you all, none of you would be standing here right now. He placed each bullet he fired with the purpose of invoking psychological pain; fear. Not physical pain and certainly not death." Mephisto said.

"Yes, I remember reading something like that somewhere." Konekomaru said. "Fear demons can be pretty primal and instinct driven when they feel threatened, making them violent during extreme situations. But, if at all possible, they usually avoid killing or physical conflict of any kind. They like to play with there victims physiologically."

"So I guess what he did to Rin was a last resort." Yukio said.

"Precisely." Mephisto said.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Renzo said, standing up from the bench. "Your framing this like it was our fault, like if we had never attacked him this would never of happened."

Mephisto smiled. "Very good, Shima! And yes, your correct. I _am _framing it that way because that is the way it _is_." Everyone just kind of looked at the director for moment, unsure of what to think.

Then Izumo spoke up. "I think that's incorrect. My familiars reacted to him strangely, like he was dangerous, _really_ dangerous. Plus, there are a lot of exorcists that have demon blood in them, and none of them look like _that_." She said, pointing to Ron. "I think that he is a threat, a _unique _threat. What happened tonight was inevitable and we had no part in causing it."

Mephisto gave a soft laugh. "Luckily for you my ignorant child, I have an explanation for both of those points. First of all, all demons, familiars included, are naturally apprehensive when dealing with fear demons, as they have a tendency to pick on both humans and demons alike, they don't distinguish." He said.

"Well that still doesn't explain away how powerful he is, or how he disarmed Rin so easily, or why he looks the way he does." Bon said.

Yukio nodded. "Bon has a point. Even with demon blood, there aren't a whole lot of people that could take that sword away from my brother, or do this." He said, holding out his two pistols. The two weapons had been fired so quickly and become so hot that the slides had fused to the inner barrels, turning the guns into paper weights.

Mephisto sighed. "Weapons, especially firearms, are instruments of fear. Therefore, fear demons instantly become the masters of any weapon that they touch. That's how he was able to take the sword away from Rin. As for his appearance and his increased power, I honestly don't know for sure." Everyone, even Shura, was taken aback by this statement. Mephisto actually _didn't know _something related to demons. They must really be in deep shit. "_But_ near as I can tell," Mephisto began after a few seconds. "...when he came in contact with the blue flames of Satan, they acted as some kind of catalyst for his demonic powers, making him more demon and less human."

The rest of them only had a few moments to process this before Rin kicked the door in. All heads turned toward the noise to see Rin standing there, his entire abdomen wrapped in gauze, supporting himself on his sword like a cane. He hobbled into the room a few steps before collapsing onto the floor.

"Jesus, Rin!" Yukio said, running over to his brother. "You just took three bullets in the sternum and one in the shoulder, you shouldn't even be alive, let alone awake and walking!"

"Ah, shut up, four-eyes!" Rin said, as his brother helped him up. "I'll be fine. Now what's going on here?"

"Well, we were all trying to decide what to do about him." Bon said, pointing through the glass at Ron.

"I have an idea!" Rin said, groaning as he propped himself against a nearby wall. "Put him a crate and ship him back to America, and our problem is solved!"

"I almost agree with that."Shura said. "But if we did send him back, especially like this, we would be signing his death certificate."

"What do you mean?" Rin said, a light growl in his voice.

"There are some circle of exorcists - most unlicensed – who consider fear demons to be very high value game trophies, especially in the United States. If we sent him back, I could pretty much guaranty that he would die, and I would put good money on that it wouldn't be painless." Shura said. "God-knows that's how his father went." Everyone turned to look at Shura with wide eyes.

"How do you know anything about his father?" Yukio asked.

It took Shura a moment to answer, she seemed to stare off into space, choosing her words. "He was an exorcist, how else?"

Bon face-palmed. "You've got to be kidding."

"Nope. He was a good one to. A really incredible dragoon, but it was always rumored that he was so good because he shared his body with a very powerful fear demon, and what-do-you-know, here's the proof." Shura said, looking through the glass at Ron.

"What happened to him?" Konekomaru asked.

Shura just looked at the ground for a moment, silent. "This group of dishonorably-discharged American exorcists caught wind of this rumor, so they found him, and cut his heart out with a box cutter." Everybody in the room let out a gasp, excluding Mephisto, who just kind of starred off into space. "A trophy, probably still sitting in a glass jar on some sick-bastard's night stand."

Everybody just kind of sat in silence for a minute. Yukio pounded his fist on the one-way glass. "Well, what the hell are we supposed to do? He's not our responsibility, he's not our _problem_!"

"LET ME OUT OF HERE!" Ron began to scream from the other side of the glass. They all jumped, none of them had realized he had woken up. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO ME? FUCK!" He was thrashing around in his chair, trying to break loose. Yukio watched as the steel bolts that held the chair to ground strain under the force. "LET ME OUT! LET ME GO!" He continued to thrash around. Yukio looked away from him, down at his feet. Yukio couldn't deny, it wasn't anger that was in Ron's voice, it was fear. He was scarred. Yukio allowed himself a silent chuckle at the irony. "Please goddammit... I'm sorry." These words made Yukio look up again. Ron had stopped trying to get out of his restraints, and instead was slumped forward in surrender. "Please... Please, I'm sorry." Ron sniffled. Yukio watched as a tear fell from one of Ron's big empty eye sockets, and freeze solid before it hit the ground.

Yukio looked turned around to look at his peers. He shook his head, not believing what he was thinking. "Okay, even if we did decide to help him, what could we really do? I mean, look at him, it could result in an international incident if we even let him near a _window, _let alone letting him out in public."

"I can help with that." Mephisto said. He took off his hat, and reached inside like a cliché magician reaching for a white rabbit. But he pulled out was considerably less innocent; a leather holster with a pistol buried in it.

"Unless you intend to put a bullet through his head, I doubt that will do much good." Bon said.

Mephisto didn't respond. He took the gun out of its holster and held it out for everyone to see. "This is no ordinary pistol." He said. And indeed, it wasn't. It was a Colt M1911 .45 with walnut grips, and an extended magazine. It had an incredible engraving of a scull on each grip, with thorny vines branching out from them. The engraving of the vines continued from the wood onto the metal, wrapping around the barrel and slide of the pistol. It was a wicked looking thing. "Much like I did with Rin's sword all those years ago, I can contain Ron's demonic powers- that white steam- within this pistol."

"So that white steam that comes from his eye sockets and his mouth is where his power comes from, is it like the symbol of a fear demons?" Izumo asked.

"It's more than that." Shura said. "It's a physical manifestation of pure fear. Paralyzingly cold to the touch."

"So will he look normal again after you trap his steam in that gun?" Bon asked.

"Relatively, yes. He will look much like Rin and Yukio do; a tail, pointy ears, sharp teeth. But his steam, his claws, and his enhanced power and senses will all be gone while the pistol is in its holster. With luck, he will also have his eyes back." Mephisto said.

Rin shook his head. "Okay, well I'm glad we've got the first part of our problem out of the way, but here comes part two; what the hell are we supposed to tell him, 'Oh by the way, there's this parallel dimension inhabited by demons, and your one of them?' I don't think that will go over so well." He said.

"_Part _demon." Mephisto said. "And let me handle that."

Without another word, Mephisto stood and walked out of the room. A few seconds later he reappeared through a door on the other side of the glass, in the interrogation room with Ron. Ron, upon hearing someone in the room with him, recoiled and scrunched up his body, as if trying to escape into his own torn and ripped clothes. Mephisto didn't even need to say those magical words of his, with a motion of his hand, all of Ron's steam left his body and the surrounding area and got sucked into the barrel of the gun. Everyone held there breath, but nothing happened, Ron didn't change back. Even Mephisto looked puzzled, then he holstered the pistol, and sure enough, as soon as he did, Ron's claws started to retracted back into normal human finger nails, his ears grew smaller, his teeth shrunk back down to a normal size, and then, finally, his eye sockets grew smaller and his eyes reappeared within them. At first Ron looked confused, he began looking around the small white room, then Mephisto crossed his gaze. Ron barred his teeth and growled at him.

"Now, now." Mephisto said, holding up his hands. "Calm down. I owe you an explanation."

"Save it." Ron said said through gritted teeth. "I have migraine; my head feels like it's about to pop like a cherry. The last thing I need is a horror story. I want some aspirin, and I want out of this fucking chair!"

"Just a minute now. What do you remember?" Mephisto said.

"Last thing I remember is Rin taking a swing at with his sword. Then it's just kind of black. That is until I woke up in here, completely blind. By the way, do I have a tail?" Mephisto just nodded. "Well shit." Ron said.

"There will be time for an explanation later, I guess." Mephisto said. He snapped his fingers and Ron's bindings came undone. Ron stood, rubbing his wrists where they had been tied.

Without another word, Ron walked past Mephisto to the door. He walked out, and looked around before coming to the conclusion that he had no idea where he was or how to get out. Then a door a little ways down the hall opened, and Rin, along with Yukio, and their friends poured out of the observation deck, stumbling over each-other as they all tried to get through the doorway at once. Once they had got their shit together, they just kind of stood in a huddle and looked at Ron from down the hallway. Ron raised an eyebrow as he noticed what poor shape they all seemed to be in.

"Christ, what the hell happened to you guys?" He said.

"You happened to them, Buster." Shura said.

Ron looked over to see that Shura had come out of the doorway, and was standing with her arms folded, glaring at him.

Ron eye's widened. "Holy shit." he said. "Is that you, Shura? What the fuck are you doing here?"

"You should know, Ferus." She said.

Now Ron was mad. "What the fuck does that mean? 'I should know.' What, did you find another guy twice you age to suck off?" Ron pointed at her. "Fuck this and fuck you! I want some answers right fucking now! Was my father involved in this shit? Why the hell are you here?" He yelled.

Shura's face twisted with anger. "OH MY GOD!" She screamed at him. "Are you really still under that pathetic delusion that I was having an affair with your greasy old man? We were partners you stupid little dipshit!"

"Um." Rin said. "I take it you two know each other?"

"Yeah, you could say that." Ron said. "She's my legal fucking guardian."

Silence fell over the room. Everybody's eyes just kind of wandered in between Shura and Ron. "Is... is that true, Shura?" Yukio said.

"Oh yeah, its true." Ron said before Shura could answer. "We lived together for damn near four years. She taught me how to fight, payed the bills, bought the groceries, and occasionally went on 'business trips' that seemed to cause a lot of cuts and bruises. Then one day, about a year and half ago, she just up and disappears. Then, a week later, I get a letter in the mail. 'New assignment, don't know when I'll be back. I'll send money.' And then nothing but envelopes of cash. That is, up until ninety seconds ago."

"I had a _job _to do, a _duty, _another promise to keep,and I'll be damned if I let you criticize me for that!" Shura said.

"Criticism is the least of your problems. I'm about to shove my foot so far up your ass that..."

"Children, children. Please calm down." Mephisto said, stepping in between Ron and Shura. "I think everyone's had enough for today. You two can proceed to destroy each other as soon as the morning comes. But right now, I am ordering all of you back to your respective sleeping quarters."

"Mephisto..." Shura started.

Mephisto snapped his finger at her. "Don't test me, I'm not in a pleasant mood. Now, on with it!" Mephisto then took off his hat, and pulled the holstered Colt 45. out of it. "Here." He said, holding the gun out to Ron. "This is yours now."

"Oh no you don't." Shura said. She ran up and swiped the gun from Mephisto's hand. "I'll be looking after this for him. I _am _his legal guardian as he was eager to point out."

"Why you...!" Ron started, but before he could finish, the Okumura brothers ran up and grabbed him by the shoulders, holding him back.

"Calm down, Ron!" Yukio said. "Come on, we'll take you back to the dorm." And with one more menacing glare, Ron turned and walked away, with Rin and Yukio in tow, leaving Shura, Mephisto, and the rest of the cram students behind in the hallway.

They didn't say a word to each other all the way back to the dorm. Every muscle in Ron's body was visibly tense, and he was shaking slightly. Rin and Yukio didn't dare disturb him, for the same reason that you don't disturb an unstable chemical; it has a high probability of blowing up in your face. They didn't go right to their rooms when they got back, instead, the three of them went to the cafeteria. Ron sat on one side of a table and the brothers sat on the other, in much the same position that they had been in that morning, calmly and obliviously eating breakfast.. Then, they just kind of stared at each other for minute. Ron's eyes seemed to wonder over every wound on Rin and Yukio's bodies several times.

"Jesus, did I really do that?" He asked. Rin and Yukio just nodded. "Shit." Ron said, running a hand through his hair. "How the hell did I do that?"

"Well," Yukio said. "It's kind of a long story..."

"We've got all night. I want to know everything, from the beginning, lay it out for me. But the quicker you get to the part that explains why I have a tail, the better." Ron said.

Yukio couldn't help but chuckle. "Ok, well in the beginning there was Assiah and Gehenna..." And everybody knows the story from there.

Ron stayed calm and collected through the entire thing. Never laughed, never raised an eyebrow, didn't even talk. He just listened and occasionally nodded. When Yukio was done, Ron just stood up, and walked out of the cafeteria to his room.

"I need time to think." He said as he walked away. Rin and Yukio waited to here the sound of his door closing before speaking.

"So, what happens now?" Rin asked.

Yukio sighed. "Now, we go back to our room and try to catch some sleep before the morning, when we both have to get up and go to class." He said.

"What! You can't be serious. They really wouldn't make us go to glass the day after something like this, would they?"

"Oh, I have no doubt. It's just a day-in-the-life, Rin. And mark my words, there will be weirder days." Yukio said. Rin just sighed in response. And with that, they both went off to bed.

Things were momentarily normal again, school did indeed go on the next day, despite broken bones and bullet holes, and nobody seemed to talk about or be much interested in the happenings of the previous night. Except Shura, who seemed even more detached and distant than usual while teaching her class. Nobody dared mention Ron to her, but it was all in the back of their heads for the whole day. The fact that they lived together was really kind of bewildering, especially to Rin, who had thought that Shura never really lived, slept, or did anything remotely normal, _ever. _While pondering this in Yukio's class, something clicked in Rin's head._Wow. _He thought. _The reason she abandoned Ron was for her assignment here, at True Cross, investigating me, and now she has stayed here a whole another year, for me._

"You know, Rin, it isn't enough to look attentive in my class, you actually have to _be _attentive"Yukio said.

Rin snapped out of it. "Oh, sorry!" he said, before going right back to ignoring his brother.

That night, when they got back to the dorm, Ron was still in his room, and there was no sign that he had left it all day.

"I should probably go get him for dinner." Rin said.

Yukio stopped him. "No. I wouldn't disturb him. He's probably still taking it in." He said.

"Hmm. Alright."

Rin and Yukio ate in silence, as Rin read and re-read some scripture that was giving him some trouble, and Yukio took down some notes for the lesson he had planned for tomorrow. Rin, as always, finished his food quickly, put the leftovers in the fridge and his plate in the dishwasher. When he was finished in the kitchen, Rin walked back out into the cafeteria to see that his had brother had gone to the room and left his plate on the counter. Rin would have normally made a fuss about this, but he decided to just let it go, and took the plate into the kitchen to clean it off.

On his way back to his room, he paused in front of Ron's door. _I should probably ask him if he wants some of the leftovers. _Rin thought. He knocked, making sure to only lightly tap the door with his knuckle (his unnatural strength had already caused him to accidentally punch a hole in several of the other doors). He waited for a second, but no answer came.

He knocked again. "Hey, Ron, you want some food?" He said. Again, there was no response. Rin's curiosity got the better of him. He reached for the nob, jiggling it a little to make sure it wasn't locked before opening it and stepping into the room.

Rin looked left to find only an empty bunk, and then he looked right to find only a half-emptied suitcase and some dirty laundry. But no sign of Ron. _Oh crap! Where is he? _Rin thought. He quickly checked behind the door, before rushing into the room and checking under each bed and in the closet. Still no sign of him. _Shit shit shit! _He rushed back out of room, running down the hall to his own. When he got there, Yukio was laying calmly on his bed reading a manga.

"Ron's gone!" Rin yelled at him from the doorway.

Yukio slowly looked up from his manga, his brow creasing. "What do you mean he's gone?" Yukio said with an annoyed tone.

"I _mean _that he's _gone_!" Rin said.

"Ah crap." Yukio said, laying his manga on his nightstand. "So he's not in his room?" he said.

"Yeah."

"Okay, well, maybe he didn't leave the building. I'll check all the floors below us and you check all the ones above us, and if we can't find him here then we'll make some phone calls." Yukio said.

Rin nodded before running toward the staircase. He checked each floor, yelling out Ron's name through the halls. But he never got a response. When he had finished his rounds on the top floor, he sat on the stairs, head in hands. "Dammit." He said. "I can't believe this. Where the hell did that asshole run off to?" He leaned back, resting his head on the stairs, looking up at the stairwell. Then he had a thought. _The stairs do go all the way up to the roof, its doubtful he's up there, but hell, it's not gonna hurt to check._

He opened the door to roof to see the sun setting behind the city. Color filled the cool air and the sky above them, casting orange shadows over the roof top, and in the foreground stood the silhouette of a teenage boy, with a white tail sticking out from underneath his shirt. Ron turned to look when he heard the door open, but turned right around to look at the sun setting when he saw that is was just Rin. Rin approached him, coming up along side of him, also watching the sunset.

"It's a beautiful day." Ron said.

Rin had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. After everything that had happened in the past 48 hours, all the new information, the new life that Ron was going to have live, and all he had to say was 'it's a beautiful day.' But there was something he wanted to ask Ron, even though it meant taking him away from his little fantasy of the beautiful day. "What does it smell like?" Rin blurted out. "Fear, that is."

Ron sighed. "It depends. Depends on the person, depends on the kind of fear, the origin of the fear." he said. "But, for the most part, it smells sweet and creamy, kind of like caramel."

"Have you always been able to smell it?" Rin asked.

"Yeah, for as long as I can remember. I always knew what it was to. My brain just always made that connection. I knew I was... different. But half demon? That's some... that's some... shit." He said, lost for words.

After some thought, Rin raised his hand and placed it Ron's shoulder. "It doesn't get better, and it doesn't get easier. I'm not gonna tell you what you have is gift, because it isn't, I know. People have been calling me a monster all my life. But at the end of day it's what you do with what you have, that's what counts."

"It's different for you." Ron said. "You have flames. Fire is warmth, fire is light, fire is the stuff of life." He clenched his fists. "What the hell did fear ever do for anybody?" There was no response, only silence. Rin had never really thought of it that way, it was kind of stunning. Rin couldn't think of a way to respond to that. Ron chuckled. "You know, one day, when I was in middle school, a guy walked into the building, a shading looking guy that nobody knew. The school principle called a code red; made all the teachers lock the doors and turn off the lights, make all of us kids hide in the corner. Turned out of be nothing, just some new teacher. But afterward I was sent to office by my teacher, because through the entire thing, I couldn't stop laughing. The principle sat me down and asked me why I thought it was okay to make so much noise in such a dangerous situation. I replied with 'I couldn't help it, the whole room smelled like _cotton candy_." Then Rin noticed something; a few small drops of water forming at Ron's feat. Rin looked up to see that Ron was crying, not making a sound, not moving his face in anyway. Just staring off into the sunset with tears streaming down his cheeks. Then he sniffled, and brought his hand up to wipe the water from his face. "You know, this whole situation, everything that's happened, everything that's going to happen, and what my life was like before, it makes me think of what my father said, as he was dying." Ron stepped forward, and threw his arms open, into the sunset, as if getting ready to embrace it. "I see light, and I see darkness, mingling and equal. Whether they welcome me to heaven or to hell, I welcome it with open arms, for you are my escape."

…

**So yeah, this was originally where I was gonna end this fic, but I have some ideas of where I could go next with it. If you want to see more of this story, please leave me a review telling me so. Also, this last part, and especially the last line, was like the big climax of the story, so please let me know what you thought. And allow to apologize in advance for any typos or missing words, my biggest fault as a writer is my infinite impatiences with proof-reading.**


	7. The American Devil Revives a Friendship

**So I don't know how long I'm going to continue this story or where I'm even going to go with it, but I've been wanting to write this chapter, expanding on Shura and Ron's (Platonic!) relationship. It's a little bit more low-key than the others, but I had a good time writing so I think you will have a good time reading it.**

**...**

Shura let her last class out early. She couldn't focus on her lesson, and she kept unknowingly reaching for her flask. She didn't get why she was so bent up about this thing with Ron. She just wanted to forget about it, take in some fresh air, some booze, a couple of pain killers and spend the rest of the day in bed. She laid on her desk, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about it. She didn't want to admit that she cared about him; cared about him like a sister cares about a younger brother. This emotional wreck just wasn't her, it wasn't the character she played. But it was inescapable. Even though she would never admit it to anyone, Ron was kind of all she had after she stopped talking to Shiro. They even hung out long before Micheal Ferus died, and when they lived together, it was the closest thing to a family Shura ever had, fights, fun, and all. Shura allowed herself a small smile when she remember what Ron had said the first time they met; 'Are you my big sister?'

"Looks like you have some explaining to do." Mephisto said.

Shura sat up fast, startled, to see the director sitting in her chair, cross legged and sipping a cup of tea. "What do you want?" She snarled.

"Don't use that tone with me." He said. "We're even now, I don't believe you have any ground left on which to base criticism for me. After all, it appears as though we have committed the exact same crime."

"Ha! Right. You hid the son of Satan from the Vatican for sixteen years. I took care of a friend's kid. I don't really see how we're even." Shura said.

Mephisto sipped from his tea. "So you really never had any idea?"

Shura shook her head. "No. He had is moments; anxiety, angst, drama. But that's just normal teenager bullshit. Nothing to really take note of."

"You know, I found it quite amusing when I learned that you really were his legal guardian. Tell me, how exactly did that come to be?" Mephisto said.

Shura sighed. "Well, there's this common misconception that I only ever had one father-figure in my life; Shiro. But in truth, while Shiro _was_ the one who pulled me out of the water, it was Micheal who held me above it. He was my partner while I did most of my work in the States, he was more of a friend than a teacher. He was just this kind of guy that always had your back. I owed just as much to him as I did to Shiro. But Shiro didn't go about collecting the dept in the right way; he gave me a choice, asked me if I would take of sons in the event of his death. Micheal was clever; he just wrote it into his will that he wanted me to be Ron's guardian, and when he did die, the kid had nowhere to go and nobody to go to, so it's not like I had a real choice."

Mephisto chuckled. "Yes, that does sound like the Micheal Ferus I knew. I must know what it was like living with his son." he said.

"It weirded me out at first. I had never really lived with anybody before that, let alone a kid. How normal and routine it was also got to me those first couple of months. But after the first year or so, it was just life."

"And what happened to that?"

"This happened. My name got pulled for this undercover op, so I had to go. Then when it was done I..." She trailed off.

"You stayed here." Mephisto said, finishing for her.

"Yeah." She said. "I just felt like I was needed here, after all I did have a debt to Shiro, too. Then, after the battle with Satan, I just decided not to go back at all. I guess I just got to wound up in this." Shura lowered her head. "Also... me and Ron didn't exactly end on a good note, I thought that if I just sent money until he was eighteen, I wouldn't have to face him again."

Mephisto chuckled. "Oh, come on, you can't just end there, you've sparked my interest! What happened?"

Shura's brow creased. "God, this really is just entertainment for you, isn't it?"

Mephisto shrugged. "More or less." he said, sipping his tea.

Shura shook her head. "What the hell, there's no point in not telling you." She said. "We had a fight. You see, he was... going through a faze."

Mephisto raised an eyebrow. "A demonic faze?" he said.

"I don't know if you could call it that, but there definitely something weird going on."

Mephisto snapped his fingers, and a bag of popcorn appeared in his lap. "Please, continue." he said.

"Well, it all started his last year of middle of school. There was this group of kids that he had always hated, they were just the main group of bullies, kids that picked on the smaller and weaker ones. But there was this one guy, the leader if you can call it that, that really got to Ron. He was really arrogant, walked around like he owned everything, not a care in the world."

"Not a fear in the world." Mephisto injected.

"Exactly. So what does Ron do? He talks his way into there little clique of bullies, starts hanging out with them, becomes one of them, and he gets to know this leader guy really well, until there pretty good friends. Then one day, Ron walks into the lunch room at the school and goes to the table were this group of bullies sit. The leader offers him a chair, but instead of sitting down, Ron picks it up and hits the guy over the head with it, out of nowhere. One thing led to another and twenty minutes later the entire group is laying on the floor, moaning, crying, trying to find there missing teeth. And Ron's just standing in the middle of it, smiling. He never did feel any guilt about that, he just kind of had this punish-the-deserving attitude about him." Shura spaced out for minute, remembering that day when she had been called to come pick him up. "He did three weeks in juvenile hall, then when he got out, we had to find another school, and that was a massive pain. Then, the DAY that he gets back to school, he once again seeks out that perfect group of douche-bags; a horde of sheep lead by a wolf. Two months later the exact same thing happens. This time though, he damn near kills one of these bullies; reverse curb stomped him so many times that he fractured his skull in four places. Does two months in juvy. When he gets out, I find that the only school that will even consider him is on the other goddamn side of the city. So I'm already pretty mad, and then when we finally do get him into this new school, he comes home the first day and hes got this dumb smile on his face. And I knew that he was planning to do it again. So we fight, it starts verbal, and then gets more heated. He broke a lamp, I broke a chair, all of dishes got ground into giblets, and somewhere in there TV got smashed. A couple weeks later, I get a call from the Vatican, and the rest is history." They sat in silence for moment. Then a light bulb went off in Shura's head. "Hey, doesn't that kind of contradict what that short, bald kid with the glasses said yesterday?"

"You know, it's generally frowned upon when you don't know your students by name." Mephisto said with a smirk.

"Konekomaru!" She said, snapping her fingers. "That's his name. Anyway, he said something about fear demons not liking to pick fights, avoiding violence and all that?"

Mephisto scratched his chin. "In my personal experience, human emotions always take precedence over demon tendencies. Also, using physical violence was to his advantage in this situation. Really, whats more frightening to a corrupt ruler than a physical attack from inside his inner circle of trusted generals."

"Yeah, that makes sense."

"Did he ever have problems with depression?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

Mephisto sighed. "Do you know why you don't hear about many people that are part fear-demon?"

Shura shrugged. "Well I would assume it's not something people tend to brag about."

"It's because most of them die before they reach adulthood."

Shura was a little taken aback by this, she wondered what Mephisto was getting at. "Why, because of poachers and trophy-hunters?" She asked.

"That's really only a freak occurrence. No, most them die so young because they take there own lives. I was honestly surprised when I found that Ron was one, being so close to adulthood as he is."

Shura looked at Mephisto like he had just threatened her. "Why is that?" She snarled.

"You see, contained within the mind of fear demon- and subsequently their children- is a organized, categorized, catalog off all the worlds different flavors of pain and misery, and they experience some of it every time they take in a breath. Most of the time it's just to much for the human psych. But Ron, Ron is different, and I have yet to discover why."

Shura half-smiled. "Huh. I think I know why." She said. "It doesn't have anything to do with his genes or his personality. It's where he grew up. In the kind of place where he lived in the city, pain and misery is just something that you get to experience every day when you walk outside. Poverty, death, disease, violence. You get used to it pretty naturally anyway, so that's probably why all the stuff in his head doesn't bother him so much."

Mephisto chuckled. "Knowing Micheal, that was probably his plan the whole time."

"Hah, I sure wouldn't put it past him." Shura drifted back off into her own mind for a minute, this time finding a nice spot on the floor to focus on. Mephisto also seemed to be lost, recalling memories he had about Micheal. "So, what should I do now?" Shura said, braking the silence.

Mephisto broke out laughing. "Your really asking my advice about this? I think your slipping, Miss Kirigakure!"

Shura just reached across and smacked Mephisto across the face, sending him falling out of the chair. "You know, for all the shit we go through for you, you could show a little sincerity once in a while."

Mephisto sat up. "You know me, Shura, what do you really expect?" He said, rubbing his red cheek. He stood, flipping his hat back onto his head. "Well, I think I'll be going now." He spun around on foot and proceeded to the door. "If I were you, Shura..." Mephisto said as he was waling away. "I would focus less on Ron and more on your job here, after all, just because you let your class out early today doesn't mean you don't have papers to grade!" Then he turned and walked out, leaving Shura alone in her dusty classroom.

"Gahhhh!" Shura said, face-palming. "For a second there I thought I was gonna get some real advice. But who am I kidding?" Then her eyes lit up. "Shit, I really do have papers to grade, don't I?"

…

"Goddammit-jesus-christ-son-of-a-bitch-motherfucker-hell!" A long stream of curses erupted from Ron's mouth as he desperately grabbed for his tail, trying to get a good grip on it. "I got you, you sonofabitch!" He said, finally rapping one of his hands around it. "Now, get in there!" he said, trying to tuck it into his pants. It was terribly uncomfortable, kind of like if someone tried to bend your arm in an unnatural way in order to fit it in a box that was obviously to small for it. So Ron took it out, but once again lost his grip on it and found himself chasing it as he tried to grab it again. Rin passed by Ron's room, looking in and noticing him struggling with his tail. Rin tapped on the door frame to get Ron's attention. "What?" Ron said, turning toward Rin.

"Hey, just a tip, If you can deal with having your shirt tucked in all the time, it's much more painless to hide it in your shirt." He said, giving Ron a friendly smile.

"Huh. Thanks." Ron said. Before going back to chasing his tail.

Rin couldn't help but chuckle at the sight. "Breakfast will be ready in about fifteen minutes, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure." Ron was to distracted with his tail to really pay attention.

Rin continued onto to the kitchen, shaking his head and laughing quietly to himself. This morning he had made omelets, recalling the memory of the first time he had tried to cook something, and failed miserably. Yukio thought of this as he sat down to eat, he looked at his brother, and figured that, even if he didn't realize he was doing it, he was remembering Shiro in his own small way, making the troubled times easier. They ate in silence, Rin to busy stuffing his face, Yukio to busy reading, and Ron to busy trying to get comfortable.

"Christ." Ron said when Rin had finished. "How do you deal with having it under your shirt like this? Every time it moves it feels like somebody going over my back with a duster."

"You put it between your over shirt and your under shirt." Rin responded. "And you don't have to hide when we are at the cram school or in here." He said, wagging his own, exposed tail for effect. "Only when your around the normal students." Then something buzzed in Rin's pocket. He pulled out his cell phone and saw that he had a text from Bon. It read; "_At water fountain studying w/ everyone. Shemie wants to know if your coming." _Rin began to text him back.

"Hey!" Yukio said. "Not at the table. Don't your remember anything father taught you?"

"Shut up four eyes!" Rin said as he sent the reply. "We're not even at the Old Geezer's house anymore."

"That's not the point, Rin." Yukio said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Rin ignored him. "Bon just invited me to come hang out at the water fountain. You guys wanna come?"

Yukio shook his head. "No, I've got to report to the director, a mission's come up."

"I'll go." Ron said. "After all, no classes today... at least." Ron frowned. "Its gonna take me a hell of long time to get used to this whole 'school on Saturday' thing."

Yukio laughed. "We Japanese would go to school on Sunday, too, if people didn't insist on going to church." He said.

"Speak for yourself." Rin said. "Lets get going Ron, leave four-eyes here to his super important exorcist stuff."

"Sure." Ron and Rin stood and took their trays to the kitchen before heading out of the cafeteria. "See, you later." Ron said as he was leaving.

"Yeah, see you tonight." Yukio said, before returning to his breakfast.

Once Rin and Ron were out of the dorm, Ron spoke up again. "You give your brother a hell of a time, don't you?" he said.

"Yeah, four-eyes can take it. He gets to make me look stupid so I get to give him shit, it's kind of our unspoken agreement."

"Yeah, I get that." Ron said. "Back home, I had this group of guys I would hang out with. We practically made a sport out of giving each other shit."

"Ha! Then you should fit in well with the crowd here."

It only took them a couple of minutes to reach the fountain where the cram students hung out. As they approached, they could see everyone there, in their various states of studying, goofing off and being bored. Renzo was actually asleep on the grass in front of the fountain, sunbathing. On the second level sat Konekomaru and Bon, quietly reciting scripture, and on the top sat Izumo, with her head buried in novel, and Shemie, looking up at the clouds and bird-watching.

Shemie was the first one to notice them coming. "Oh hey you guys!" Shemie called out, waving to them as they approached.

That got the attention of the others, all except Izumo, who was either to preoccupied with her book to notice or to apathetic to look up. As soon as Bon, Renzo, and Konekomaru saw Ron, they all jumped up and ran to him, making a little circle around him.

"Is it true you lived with Shura?" Bon said.

"How long have you known her for?" Renzo said.

"Did she used to be nice?" Konekomaru said.

Ron held up his hands. "Wow, wow, wow guys. One at a time."

"You guys are unbelievable." Izumo said from her perch, without even looking up from her book. "Don't you remember that one time, like only two days ago, when he nearly killed us all."

Everyone looked back at Ron to see his reaction. He just kind of shrugged. "Some people hold grudges, there's not much you can do." he said.

"Getting back to the point." Renzo said eagerly. "So you lived with Shura between the ages of ten and fourteen right?"

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, why?"

"Does that mean that Shura is the one who gave you..." His eyes lit up little stars. "The sex talk!"

Ron's face turned bright red and he stumbled a little bit. "Ah... well... uhh... uhh." Then he put on the biggest, dumbest grin of his life. "I... uhh... Don't remember."

Renzo grabbed him buy the shirt collar. "Bullshit! How can you not remember?" He said, shaking Ron, whose cheeks were still the color of freshly picked apples.

"Hey, get off him." Bon said, grabbing Renzo and pulling him back. "Your mind works in strange ways, doesn't it." He said, punching his friend in the shoulder. Renzo didn't even notice, he appeared to have entered some kind of perverted day-dream, letting his mouth hang open as he stared off into nothingness, thinking about his fantasy. "God, there really is no hope for you is there?" This time Bon smacked him upside the head. Renzo still didn't come out of it.

"Never mind him." Konekomaru said. "But seriously, what was it like living with Miss Kirigakure?" He pressed.

Ron scratched his chin. "Well, I guess it was weird at first. Oh! I remember this one time, after we had been living together for about three weeks, some fat, middle aged bastard from the apartment across the hallway decided he like, deserved Shura or some crazy shit like that. So he waits for me to go catch the bus to school, and then breaks down the door and attacks her."

"I bet that didn't go over well for him." Rin said.

"Ha! Yeah, no shit. I'm just getting to that part. So I come home, and Shura has this Dumb-son-of-a-bitch hog-tied and gagged to the living room chair. His foot is bent at this weird angle, he's got black eye, a couple of his teeth are on the floor and he's got little bits of glass like imbedded in his fore-head. So I'm just staring at this with my mouth hanging open, when Shura walks in. So I'm like 'Shura, what the hell happened?' and she says 'He attacked me.' So I said. 'well, have you called the police yet?' and she just gives me this look like I got scorpions crawling out of my ears." He began to crack up, remembering the fond memory. Soon they all started cracking up, picture the scene that Ron had just described to them. But then he stopped, remembering the argument he had with Shura just a couple nights ago. "It was good times." He said, a little sullenly.

They made their way back to the water fountain. Everyone got back into there original positions, this time with Rin sitting next to Shemie on the top level, watching the clouds with her, and Ron down on the second level, reading a book on fear demons that Yukio had given him while Bon and Konekomaru recited scripture. Occasionally someone would make a joke or crack wise and they all would laugh again before returning to there own things. After a while, a feeling came over Ron. He realized that it just kind of felt good to be here hanging out with people, being in a group. Then that feeling was shattered.

"Hey, Buster!" A voice said. Ron's eyes grew wide, there was only one person on this earth who called him that, and sure enough, when he looked up, he saw Shura, standing there at the base of the water fountain. "I need a word with you." She said.

"Uhh..." Ron stammered. "Okay." He obliged, jumping down from his perch, upon which Shura motioned for him to fallow her, and they proceeded to a safe distance away from the fountain, outside the hearing range of the rest of the students.

"So, what is it?" He said, folding his arms.

Shura sighed. "So, how are you doing?"

Ron raised an eyebrow. "So I guess your over what happened a few nights ago, and..." He trailed off, they both new what he was talking about.

"Yeah, as long as you are. Being constantly angry at some one takes a lot of energy."

"Or maybe you just realized you were wrong."

"Don't push it, Buster." She said. "So, what's new?"

Ron couldn't help but chuckle. She had said like she was simply talking to a neighbor that had been out of town for couple of weeks. "I started smoking weed." He said. "Then my GPA dropped. Then I got hooked on Aderall for a while and GPA went back up. That pretty much sums up the new-and-interesting in the life of Ron Ferus."

"But no more fights?" Shura said.

Ron bowed his head. "Yeah. That thing that happened between us before you left, it kind of stuck to me. I thought you were coming home, and I..." It was plainly obvious how hard he was fighting to hold off tears. "I didn't want you to still be disappointed in me when you came back!" He blurted out. He sniffled a little bit. Shura smiled.

Then she threw her arms arms around him. "It's good to see you again, kid." She said, hugging him. He returned the embrace.

After a minute, they returned to the water fountain, where all of the students remained, waiting to see what would happen. Rin was the first to speak.

"So, are two good?" He said.

And with that, Shura grabbed Ron and put him in a headlock. "Yeah, we're good." She said, giving Ron a really hard nuggie.

"Shit shit shit! No! No Goddammit! Not this again!" Ron protested.

All of the students broke out laughing, even Izumo offered a chuckle. All was right with the world.

What a strangely normal day...

…

**Thanks for reading! And If you feel so inclined, please leave a review.**


	8. The American Devil Get's Some Mail

**Good news! I have figured out, at least for the time being, where I am going to go with this story. I hope you all enjoy. Some of this may seem a little bit out-there, but bear with me. It will all become clear in due time.**

…

"Come on, hit me!" Ron shouted. Rin ran at him, bringing his fist back for a punch. He swung at Ron, who deflected the punch to the inside, twisting Rin's upper body and putting him off balance. Then Ron quickly side-stepped out of Rin's way and tripped him, sending Rin flying into the closet that Ron had been standing in front of. "Your letting me use your own momentum against you." Ron said.

Rin climbed out of the closet, huffing and puffing, and a little dazed. "I thought you were supposed to be teaching me some fighting moves, not kicking my ass... again." He said.

"I'm not teaching you any special moves or a fighting style." Ron said. "Quite the contrary. I'm teaching you a mentality."

"That doesn't even make any sense." Rin said, sitting down on his bed.

"Look at it this way." Ron said, sitting down in a desk chair in front of Rin. "Martial arts and various other fighting styles are great for the purposes of competition and, in some cases, self-defense. But, they aren't very time or energy efficient. A martial arts battle is a essentially a war of attrition; your waiting for the guy your fighting to make a mistake that you can take advantage of. For every move in a controlled sport or game there is a counter-move. What I'm trying to get you to unlearn is that mentality of a fair-fight. Also, don't let your emotions get you, plan your attack. I know it sounds counter-intuitive and maybe even a little evil to be methodical about the way you kick somebody else's ass, but that's the way your gonna have to think if you want to win."

"Your talking about dirty-fighting, basically?"

"If you want to call it that. I like to refer to it as winning and kicking ass." Ron smirked. "Remember, I can counter any punch you throw, so don't lead off with that."

"Don't lead off with a punch." Rin repeated to himself. Rin grabbed the pillow off the bed and threw it at Ron. Ron brought up his arms to block his face, but by the time he had deflected the pillow, Rin had already planted a punch right in his gut, causing him to double over. Then Rin put his hands on top Ron's head and forced it down while bringing his knee up, causing the two to collide at a very painful velocity. Then, as a finishing touch, Rin grabbed the right side of Ron's head and smashed it through the window, sending broken bits of glass onto the sidewalk below, before grabbing him by the back of his shirt and flinging him across the room and into the door. Rin approached Ron, who was sitting, stunned on the floor. "How as that?" Rin asked, extending a hand to Ron.

Ron took it. "Pretty good." He said, letting Rin pull him to his feet. "If it wasn't for this demonic strength thing you probably would have fucking killed me, but that's the point. So yeah, good job."

Then Yukio burst through the door, gun drawn. He looked around the room, seeing several pieces of broken furniture, the broken window, cracks in the walls, and little drops of blood scattered all over the floor. The he spotted Rin and Ron, standing around like nothing at all had happened. "Jesus, what happened in here?" Yukio said.

"Oh nothing much." Ron said. "I was just giving Rin some fighting tips."

"Ha! That's the last thing my brother needs." Yukio said, holstering his pistol. "You two had better clean this up."

"Yeah, yeah, four-eyes, we will." Rin said.

Yukio turned to leave. "Oh wait." he said, pulling several envelopes from his jacket pocket. "You have some mail, Ron." He said, handing the letters to Ron.

"From who?" Ron asked.

"I don't know, I figured you would. There's some English writing above the return address, but my English isn't good enough to translate it."

Ron looked at the return address. "Holy shit." He said.

"What is it?" Rin said, leaning over to try and get a good look at the letter.

"This was mailed from the state penitentiary about thirty miles from where I live." Ron said.

"What?" Yukio said, his tone intensifying.

"My state's pen. Really nasty prison, really overloaded." He said.

"I know what a state pen is." Yukio said. "I want to know why your getting mail from it."

"Well, lets find out." Ron said. He walked over the to desk, brushing off the glass and sitting down. Rin and Yukio remained standing, peering over his shoulder at the letters. "Yep, there all from the pen." He said, after taking a quick look at all the letters. "This one here is the oldest, mailed about three weeks ago, right around the time I left to come here."

"There's like five letters here, why are you getting all of them now?"

"My guess..." Ron said, tearing open the first letter. "My land lady probably saw them piling up in my mail box and forwarded them to me." He pulled out the letter, unfolding the sheet of wide-ruled notebook paper. "Oh, I know who this is from." He said after looking over the awful handwriting for a minute. "This guy's name is Tony Franks, he is, or was, one of my best friends."

"What happened to him?" Rin said.

"Well, he went to jail, about three months before I came here. He's twenty-one, actually, I suppose he's twenty-two now. Any way, he really liked cars, but unfortunately he was also a klepto."

"Klepto?" Yukio said.

"Kleptomaniac. Means he had an obsession with taking things that weren't his. Anyway, put two-and-two and together: he liked cars and he liked to steal shit. They don't treat grand-theft-auto repeat offenders with kindness and respect where I come from. He got twelve years without chance of parole."

"So, why is he writing you now?" Yukio asked.

Ron shook his head. "I haven't the foggiest idea." He said. "But, there's only one way to find out." Rin and Yukio continued to look over his shoulder while he read every single letter in chronological order, despite the fact that neither of them could read English. When he was done, he put the last letter down on the desk, leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, and sighed. "Well I saw this day coming." He said.

"What's going on?" Rin asked.

"Oh, he thinks a group of guys on his cell block are plotting to kill him, and his paranoia increases with every letter. In this last one he's telling me that the all the guards are in on it too."

Yukio raised an eyebrow. "You seem so calm about this." he said.

"Well yeah. Nobody's actually trying to kill him, in fact, I would be surprised if this group of guys he's talking even exists at all. His entire family on his dad's side are schizos, so I saw this day coming."

"More American slang. What does 'schizo' mean?" Yukio said.

"It's short for paranoid schizophrenia. On top of seeing things that aren't there and hearing voices in there heads, paranoid schizophrenics often times become so wrapped up in there own minds that they start to believe that the entire world is a conspiracy that's out to get them. In all honesty, I'm surprised he's just seeing murderers instead of dragons and shit like that."

"So, what are you going to do?" Rin said.

"Well, I'm gonna call his mom first of all. If it is paranoid schizophrenia, there's a good chance that I'm the last person on the entire fucking planet that he trusts. His family might not even know about this. Maybe they can get him to an institution where he can get some help, and get him out of that fucking penitentiary."

"There's a phone in the kitchen you can use." Rin said.

"Thanks." Ron got up from the desk and walked out of the room, leaving Rin and Yukio by themselves.

"You seem a little on-edge, Yukio, is something going on?" Rin said after a moment.

Yukio sighed. "It's just... he didn't keep the greatest of company, did he?"

Rin shrugged. "We've practically sold our souls to Mephisto, so I don't think we can talk shit about who he used to hang out with."

"But it doesn't disturb you at all that one of his best friends is criminally insane?"

Rin just shrugged again. "Does it disturb you that your father is Lucifer?" He said.

Yukio shook his head at his brother. "Don't give me that, this is different."

"What ever you say, four-eyes." Rin said, as he bent over to pick up some bits of glass off the floor.

Ron walked into the kitchen with some caution. Rin had warned him of the demon that lived here. He inched along the wall, making sure not to touch any of the counters or cooking materials. "I'm just here to use the phone." Ron said, hoping the little demon was listening. "Not gonna touch anything." He got to the phone with out incident, however, it took him a while to place the call, considering that he was calling from half-way around the world and had to go through all of the bullshit associated with placing long-distance calls. Finally the phone began to ring.

There was click as somebody picked up. "Hello?" A woman's voice said.

"Hello, Misses Franks?" Ron said. Then there was silence. For a second Ron wondered whether or not the call had been dropped. Then he realized that he had been speaking in Japanese. "Oh! Sorry about that, Misses Franks, force of habit. This is Misses Franks, isn't it?" He said in English.

"Yes, yes it is. And you are...?"

"It's Ron, Ronny Ferus. I trust you haven't forgotten me yet."

"Ron! It's nice to hear from you. What was that you were saying when I first picked up?"

"I was speaking in Japanese. I'm on a foreign exchange student trip in Japan."

"Oh, how nice. Now what did you call me all the from Japan to talk about, I hope you aren't footing the bill for this call."

"Ha, right!" Ron chuckled. "Listen, Misses Franks..." He said, his tone getting serious. "I just got a huge stack of letters from your son, Tony, and he's kind of freaking me out. He's convinced there's some plot amongst the other inmates to kill him. Have you heard anything about this?"

Misses Franks sighed. "Yes, unfortunately I have. He's been writing to everyone he ever met asking for help. I get a letter from him almost every day. I think it's getting worse."

Ron was little taken aback by this. Normally Tony wouldn't be trusting anybody, but Misses Franks was making it sound like he was asking for help from anybody he could reach. "Well, have you had any luck getting him out of prison and into a home or institution of some kind?" Ron said.

"No, the lawyer keeps telling me that there isn't enough evidence to suggest it might be schizophrenia. So there's nothing we can do."

"So, are you just gonna have to wait until he kills somebody?" Ron snapped.

"I'd rather not think about it." She said, seeming kind of distant.

"Yeah. I'm sorry I snapped like that."

"Don't sweat it. Everyone is on edge about this. If you don't count the cops, I don't think there was a single person that didn't like Tony."

"Misses Franks, do me a favor and keep me updated, will you? But don't call me here, it's to expensive."

"Sure thing, Ron. Talk to you later." And then she hung up.

Ron replaced the phone in it's cradle and ran a hand through his hair. "Shit." He said.

Then Rin appeared in the door way. "Hey, Ron." He said.

"Yeah, what is it?" Ron said, looking up at him.

"We just got an email, there's a mission." Rin said.

"A mission?"

"Yeah, a combat mission. Exwires participate in them as part of our training, we've got to get down to the cram school." Rin's whole body was tense with excitement.

Ron raised an eyebrow. "They let you go on 'combat' missions, huh?"

"Well, yeah! How else are supposed to get field experience?"

Ron smirked. "So you like, what, clean demonic fungus out of peoples septic tanks?" He said, laughing at his little joke.

Rin's mood dropped like a rock. "Yeah, something like that." He said, bowing his head. "But they made this one seem urgent, so maybe it's actually something cool!"

"Am I invited?" Ron said.

Rin scratched his chin. "Um... yeah, I guess. I don't see why not." He said, turning around to leave and motioning for Ron to fallow.

"So, lets go." Ron said, fallowing Rin out of the kitchen

"My brother already left. He said he had to discuss something about this mission with the other instructors." Rin said as they made there was to the janitor's closet.

When they got to the class room where the briefing was being held, everyone else was already there, and Yukio and Shura were standing on the podium ready to give the briefing. When Yukio saw Ron and Rin in the door way, he cleared his throat to get their attention. "Ferus." He said, stopping Ron in his tracks. "Your welcome to sit through the briefing with the other students, but unfortunately you have not passed the exwire exam, so you cannot participate in his mission."

"With all do respect, Mister Okumura, that's bullshit." Ron said, making the entire class gasp, and earning him a death glare from Shura.

"I'm afraid he's right." A voice said from behind Ron. He whipped around to see Mephisto standing behind him, grinning. "I cannot, in good conscience, let an untrained student go out into the field."

Ron nodded. "Well, maybe I'm not a student today."

Mephisto raised an eyebrow. "Please, continue."

Yukio was growing agitated. "Mister Pheles there's no way you can allow..."

"Be quiet a minute, Okumura." Mephisto snapped. "Now, Ron, continue."

"You could hire me." Ron said. "Lets call it a 'security contractor'."

"That's just a very nice word for mercenary." Yukio said through gritted teeth.

Mephisto just laughed. "Oh, I like it! Your free to go on this mission, Ferus. Just don't mess it up, or you'll be fired your first day on the job." And with that, Mephisto turned and walked away.

Ron turned to look at Yukio, who still looked pretty pissed, but motioned for Ron to sit down with the others. Ron chose a seat next to Rin, at a table with Bon, Renzo, and Konekomaru.

"Okay, lets get started." Yukio said. "This is your big chance not only to prove yourselves but also to get more well acquainted with your chosen meisters." Yukio turned his gaze directly at Bon. "Suguro, you have passed your dragoon paper evaluation, if you are still interested in this meister, this mission will act as your field assessment." Bon nodded in response. "Good." Yukio said. "Now, on with the brief. There's an old automobile factory about three hours outside of the city, it's abandoned, but recently it was bought by a land developer, who quickly found out that the factory had an infestation of some kind. After going through every exterminator within a three-hundred mile radius we got the call. We have little details, but based on what we do have, we think it's an infestation of Darklings."

"Darklings?" Rin asked.

"Izumo!" Yukio shouted. "You're up. Describe a Darkling."

Izumo stood from her chair and cleared her throat. "Darkling- a lower-to-intermediate class demon, depending on size and age. It can manifest itself in Assiah without a host as long as it remains in the dark or shadows, but requires a host to survive in light, and only for a very short period of time. When it manifests itself without a host it shares a likeness with a large sewer rat. They have shinny black skin and red eyes. They can be destroyed by light or fire, but also fear loud noises, which will make them scatter. They have a heightened sense of smell and are partially blind. They are most closely related to Fear demons."

Rin nudged Ron in the ribs. "Looks like we're going to meet some of your cousins." He said.

"Very good, Izumo, textbook." Yukio said, ignoring Rin's comment. "As for materials, everybody will supplied with an LED flashlight, a change of batteries, and a two-wave radio with a panic button, if you hit the button, we will come into the rescue you. Tamer's will get high-durability paper for summoning circles, Aria's will get pocket bibles. Bon, for you I have requisitioned an H&K G36c assault rifle and four clips of ammunition, are you familiar with this weapon?" Bon, again, nodded in response. "Good. And as for you Ron, well, I guess I can find something for you to use."

"That's cool, I'm just happy to be here." Ron said.

"Good, I'm glad we understand each other." Yukio said. "It's going to be a long drive, and it will most certainly be dark by the time we get there. So lets get a head start on the sun-set and get into the vans. Let's go." He said.

…

**So, I would make a promise about when the next chapter would be out, but I can never seem to keep such promises. All I can say is that it will be out ASAP. Thanks for reading and please leave a review!**


	9. The American Devil Is Squad Leader

**Hey everyone, so this part here, as well as the part before it, and the part fallowing it, was originally all supposed to be one chapter. But I'm lazy as fuck so it's going to be three chapters, possibly four. Anyway, you get the latest developments in the life and times of Ronny Ferus faster because of my lazyness, so yay.**

**Oh! And I just realized a couple days ago that when you write something italic in Open Office and then import it to , it ceases to be italic, so there was probably some confusion in previous chapters as to when someone was thinking something. Sorry about that, and brownie points to all those who were able to figure it out regardless.**

**In response to Not Nameless: First of all, sorry that it has taken my forgetful ass three whole fucking chapters to respond to you, but yes, you may quote me. In fact, please do, I invite it, on here or anywhere else.**

**Now... GET ON WITH IT!**

...

Ron looked out the window of the van, but the blackness of the night compounded by the dark tint of the glass curbed his vision so heavily that he couldn't even see the ground rushing past underneath. They had been forced to all pile into one of the vans, because the other one was full of field and monitoring equipment. Rin got to ride shotgun, next to his brother who was driving. Behind Yukio sat Ron, with Konkomaru in the middle and Bon in the opposite window seat. Behind them sat Shemie and Izumo, with Renzo happily squeezed in between them. Nobody talked, there was a tension in the air. Suddenly, something flashed by Ron's window, startling him. He looked back to see that it was just a blinking yellow light illuminating a road side construction site. Ron got comfortable in seat again just in time for Yukio to say: "Alright, we're here." The car slowed, coming to a halt before turning left into a large empty lot. Ron looked around Yukio, trying to get a better look. Then the head lights illuminated it's silhouette in the distance, maybe a hundred yards away. It was so massive that from where he was, all he could see was about half of the southern wall. The head lights turned a little to the right, showing a door at the very corner of the factory, marked **PRIVATE PROPERTY. DO NOT ENTER. **And then underneath that: **EMPLOYEE ENTRANCE ONLY. **The car continued to pull forward, before stopping about twenty feet from the large metal doorway. "Everybody out." Yukio said.

They all got out and huddled around the hood of the van. Despite the blackness, it was a very nice night out, the air was warm and humid, and when got to hot, a nice breeze came along cooled everything back down. Ron and pretty much everyone else quietly wished the weather could be enjoyed under better circumstances.

"All right, here we go." Shura said, appearing from the blackness behind them with a large rolled up sheet of paper in her hand. "This is the floor plan of the factory." She said, unrolling the paper on the hood of the car. "There are four entrances, one at each corner of the building. We are here; at the southeast corner entrance." She pointed to the spot on the floor plan. "The road we just got off of is here, running parallel to the western wall. There are two floors; the manufacturing floor, or bottom floor, where all of the assembly lines are. There are six lines in all, the factory has them placed three wide and two long on the floor. Try not to destroy any of the lines or the equipment that is still attached to them, we have to foot the bill for that. In total, the factory is about an eighth of a mile wide and a fourth of the mile long. Any questions about the layout?"

Bon's hand shot up immediately. "You said there were two floors, but you only talked about the first floor. Why didn't you mention the second, is it off-limits or something?"

"Nothing is off limits." Yukio said. "I would like to remind everyone that this is in no way a controlled exercise, this a real combat mission. Use everything at your disposal."

"True." Shura said. "But, to answer your question, Suguro, I didn't mention second floor because it's just a management floor. The only thing that makes up the 'second floor' is two catwalks that Run along east and west sides of the building, a bridge in the center connecting them, and a foreman's office on the west side. There's really no reason why you would need to go up there."

"The foreman needs to be able to observe his factory well." Ron said. "I bet that office and those catwalks are pretty high off the ground floor."

Shura raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, about thirty meters." She said.

"Sounds like a good vantage point to me." Ron said.

Yukio shook his head. "Let's jut get on with it. Come on, Time to get the rest of your materials of of the other van." He said.

Shura rolled the floor plan back up and they all walked back to the other van. Once they were all gathered around the back doors for the van, Shura opened them wide to reveal nothing less than a mobile armory and command station. There were eight or so glowing computer monitors and beeping electronics, along with two folding chairs, a gun rack, and a padlocked supply cabinet at the back. Yukio stepped inside and grabbed a lone G36c rifle off the gun rack, he then unfolded the stock and handed the weapon to Suguro, who took it and immediately pulled the bolt open, checking to see if there was a cartridge in the chamber. Once he was satisfied that weapon was safe, he slung it over his shoulder. Yukio then walked back to the supply cabinet, undoing the padlock and grabbing a utility belt containing four magazines out of it, also handing this to Suguro, who wrapped it around his waist and clicked the buckled behind his back. Then Yukio reached in the cabinet and removed what looked like a head band with some kind of pod on the side of it. "You all will also be receiving one of these. This is what we will be using to monitor the mission." He said. "This little pod on the side here is a digital camera, allowing us to observe every move you make in real time from right here in this van."

Shemie shivered. "You mean that your not coming inside with us." She said, her voice quivering with fear.

"Don't worry Shemie." Yukio said. "Thanks to these cameras, it will be like we're right there with you." Then, Yukio pulled a two wave radio out of his jacket pocket. "Doubly so with these. This button on the side here," he said, fingering a large red button next to the digital antenna. "is the panic button. If you press it, it will send an alarm to us, as well as a beacon to your exact location. However..." He said, his tone intensifying. "if anyone of you presses it, the mission is over for all of you, so think twice before calling for help. Alright, lets get set up."

Over the next couple of minutes, radios and head cameras were distributed to everybody. As Ron sniffed the air, he noticed a slight increase in tension as the action got closer. He started seeing that tension manifest itself; Bon kept checking his weapon, Izumo scrutinized her summoning circle, making sure that there were no brakes or mistakes, and even Rin, who was usually either to brave or to oblivious to be scared, kept messaging the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it at a moments notice. There was a particularly strong scent coming from Konekomaru, dangerously strong. It worried Ron. Then everybody was ready, except for one minor detail.

"Hey." Ron said, walking up to Shura. "So, are you gonna let me have my gun?"

"Well..." Shura said. She looked over to Yukio, who nodded grudgingly. "Alright, give me a minute." She said. Then she held her hand over her stomach area, and suddenly her tattoo began to glow with light. A pistol emerged from the light in her stomach, suspended in mid air. Then Shura grabbed it, and the light disappeared.

"Anybody ever tell you just how trippy that is?" Ron said, raising an eyebrow.

"You do realize that as your instructor, I could make you go in there with nothing but your boxers, right?" She said.

"Yeah, yeah. Can I have the gun now?" Ron said.

Shura rolled her eyes. "Here." She said, handing him the pistol.

Ron took it, but then had to take a second to admire the craftsmanship. It was a H&K USP 45. with a mag-well custom fitted for extended magazines, a right-hand-molded grip, a custom recoil compensator/flash hider mounted to the muzzle, and a miniature PEQ box mounted under the barrel with a laser sight and a flash light. All over the barrel and receiver there was professionally done engravings of crosses, adding to the weapons already foreboding look. It was some really nice custom work, but... "This isn't my pistol." Ron said.

"What do you mean it's not 'your' pistol?" Shura said.

"You know what I mean." Ron said, growling.

Shura chuckled. "Buster, you'll be getting _that_ pistol when I think your ready for it. Like I said before, you should be happy that you're getting anything."

Ron sighed. "Okay." He said. "Can I at least get some ammunition?" He said, sticking his middle finger up the empty mag well of the gun.

"Alright, since you asked." Shura said. She once again did the thing with her tattoo, but this time two large pistol magazines emerged from her stomach. She handed them to Ron. "You happy now?" She said.

"I only get two?" Ron said.

"They're staggered magazines, they hold twenty rounds a piece and are fully loaded. If you need more ammo than that, you dead anyway, Buster." She said, ruffling Ron's hair.

"Thanks for the encouragement." Ron said, sliding one of the mags up into the gun and stuffing the other down his pocket. Ron walked back over the group. Bon was busy fitting his flash light to the side of his gun, but everybody else seemed ready to go. They were all quietly chatting amongst each other, except for Konekomaru, who was standing a few feet from everybody else, staring at the ground. "Is something wrong?" Ron said, walking up to Konekomaru.

Konekomaru jumped at the sound of Ron's voice. "N...No." He stuttered. "I was just... praying."

"When are you gonna learn it's impossible to bullshit me." Ron said, putting on a friendly smile. "I can smell fear, remember?" He said, flicking his own nose.

Konekomaru sighed. "It's just..." Konekomaru looked away from Ron. "Last year, I was possessed by a demon, a Typhoon. Lets just say that it was less than pleasant. And darklings are notorious for possessing... people of my size." he said.

Ron nodded. "Your problem is trust." he said.

Konekomaru turned and looked Ron straight in the eye. "What do you mean?" He said.

"The last time you were possessed it was because you didn't trust the people around you. You didn't trust that Rin could keep his power contained, and you didn't trust Bon and Shima to not abandon you. So right now, how about you trust me when I tell you that everything will be alright." Ron said, putting a hand on Konekomaru's shoulder.

Konekomaru looked up at Ron, and, to Ron's surprise, smiled. "Thanks." He said.

"Alright!" They heard Yukio shout. All heads turned in the direction of the instructor. "Look," He said, approaching the group. "I wasn't going to trouble you with this, but we have a new policy with exwire combat missions. As part of your training for being in the field, you have to assign a mission leader for your group."

Bon immediately stepped forward. "I nominate myself." He said.

"No way!" Izumo said. "I wouldn't fallow you into a pillow store."

Bon whipped around, pointing a menacing finger at Izumo. "Yeah? Well how else is better for the job than me? You? HA! That's a laugh."

Izumo sighed, like a mother disappointed in her obnoxious son. "I wasn't going to suggest me, nimrod. I just don't want somebody as self-obsessed as you are giving me orders."

Bon looked like he was going to spontaneously combust. "Why you little..." Konekomaru and Renzo grabbed him on either side and held him back as he tried to lunge himself at Izumo.

Izumo didn't even flinch. "Typical." she said.

"I have an idea." Rin said, tapping his head. "What about Ron?"

"Huh?" Everyone else blurted in unison, including Ron, Yukio, and Shura.

"Think about it." Rin said. "We've all known him for equally as long, and we all distrust him equally as much, so there's no bias."

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Uhh... thanks... I think." Ron said.

"Rin does have a point." Konekomaru said. "Ron is really the only common denominator here."

Izumo sniffed. "So what? Without that demon pistol of his, Ron is just as useless as Rin without his sword."

"Hey!" Rin and Ron shouted in unison.

"Just pointing out the facts." Izumo said.

"Not really." Rin said. "I know he can fight hand-to-hand, and he has great reaction time. I have the bruises to prove it."

"And just because his demonic powers are sealed away in a gun, it doesn't mean that there isn't still the blood of a fear demon pumping through his veins. So he's still naturally better with a gun- or any other weapon- than most humans." Shura said.

"Well, Ron." Yukio said as everybody turned to look at Ron. "What do you think."

"Uhh... sure, I guess." Ron shrugged. "So I'm like a squad leader?"

"Yes." Yukio said, stepping forward. "The team leader acts as a field coordinator for the other exorcists. It's his job to figure out the best way to deal with the task at hand and come up with solutions to problems encountered in the field." Yukio took a rolled up piece of paper out of his jacket. "This is a smaller version of the floor plan we all looked at earlier, it might help you plan your moves." He held the map out for Ron, but when he grabbed it, Yukio held onto it for a second, and mouthed the words 'Don't fuck this up' to Ron before letting go.

"Thanks." Ron said, nodding to Yukio.

Yukio turned to face the rest of the group. "Now, you will be entering the facility from the doors closest to us, the south-east entrance." He said, pointing to the large metal double-doors illuminated by the van's headlights. "That is your only instruction, from hear your on your own. Mission clock start..." Yukio looked at his watch. "...now. Go!"

"Okay, everybody, lets move!" Ron shouted, running toward the door and motioning for everyone else to fallow him. Ron took cover on the wall on the left side of the double-doors. "Suguro, stack up on the other side of the door, the rest of you, get behind me, up against the wall."

Suguro stacked up on the other side of the big double-doors. "Breach and clear?" He asked, stuffing a magazine into his weapon and pulling the bolt back.

"Yeah." Ron said as ever body else lined up behind him. "You know how?" He asked.

"Yeah. Do you?" Suguro asked.

Ron nodded. "Shura taught me." He said.

"So how we gonna play this, you want to kick down the door?" Suguro asked.

"Naw, it's to heavy, and I don't want to startle what ever is behind it. So take it slow. We'll open the doors at the same time, I'll clear left, you clear right. Got it?" Suguro nodded. Ron looked behind him at the others. "Okay, everybody else, wait out here until I me and Suguro clear the room okay?" Everybody nodded. "Okay, here we go." Ron pulled the slide back on his pistol, chambering a round.

Ron pushed on his door, slowly applying more and more pressure until the giant door started to move. Suguro fallowed his lead, and together they opened the doors, guns raised. It was completely black on the inside, Bon and Ron fingered the buttons on the side of there firearms, turning on their tactical lights. Ron was a little surprised at what he saw, instead of giant factory, extending out as far his little LED light would shine, his light fell upon a row of lockers, less than twenty feet in front of him. He continued through the doorway, moving his light to the left, he saw more lockers and few benches, as well as few empty shipping crates along the wall. He entered the room fully, checking the wall behind him and behind the door, but again, only finding lockers.

"Clear right." He heard Suguro whisper.

"Clear left." Ron said. Suddenly Ron was blinded by a bright flash of light. "Fuck!" He yelled as he covered his eyes with his arm.

"Oh, sorry." He heard Suguro say.

When Ron uncovered his eyes, he saw Bon standing next to light switch. "Give me some warning next time, okay? You damn near scared the shit out of me."

"I said I was sorry, didn't I?" Suguro said, shrugging.

Ron gave Suguro a hard look as he turned off his tactical light and put his pistol back into his waist band. Then he ducked his head back outside of the doubled doors. "It's safe to come in." he said to the other students, who fallowed him back into the little room.

"I don't think this was on the floor plan." Konekomaru said as he entered the little room with all the lockers.

"Yeah, it doesn't look like this was part of the original factory." Bon said, rubbing his hand over the wall were a locker had been ripped out. "These are cheap bricks and poorly laid mortar, it looks like it was just thrown up to be an employee locker room. The rest of the factory is probably just beyond that door there." he said, pointing to a crooked and splintered wooden door in between two lockers.

"It certainly smells like a locker room." Renzo said, pinching his nose.

"Look over there." Izumo said, pointing toward the western end of the room. "That looks like a cargo elevator." And indeed it was. A large metal cage painted in a yellow warning color, with an electric motor bolted to the ground beside it.

"Yeah. It probably goes up to the second floor cat walks, where the manager's office is." Konekomaru said.

"So wait, is the entire factory broken up into little rooms like this?" Rin asked.

Bon shook his head. "Probably not. But it would be a good idea to check it out from above. So someone should go up there and get the lay of the land. Don't you think, Ron?" He asked. But Ron wasn't paying attention, he seemed to be lost in his own little world, sniffing the air. "Ron!" Bon said, a little bit sharper. "Shouldn't we get going?"

"No." Ron said, holding up his hand. "I smell something. We're not alone." Ron pulled out his pistol, and motioned for Bon to come up behind him as he advanced toward the western end of the room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the barrel of Bon's rifle come up beside him as he moved forward, toward the smell. It was coming from a pile of shipping crates in front of the eastern row of lockers. It was sweet, but not creamy, it was sharp, and layered beneath it was a bitterness. It was very pure fear laced with an undertone of confidence, a very interesting combination. There was one particularly large shipping crate that reached almost all the way to the ceiling of the little room, and could have easily fit two people inside of it. He pointed to it, showing Bon where the smell was coming from. Bon trained the barrel of his rifle on it as they approached. They stopped at it, and Ron raised three fingers, signaling a count down. 3... 2... 1... He closed his fist, and then flipped the shipping crate over to expose... a child with a video camera?

"What the fuck?" Bon said, lowering the barrel of his gun.

Ron could see the little guy was about to scurry off, so he grabbed him by the back of his shirt color and raised him off the ground. "Put me down now!" The kid yelled, waving his video camera at Ron.

Ron just gave him a kind of sideways look. "God your short, what are you, like five?" He said, stuffing his pistol into his belt.

"I AM TEN YOU BOGGER EATER! Your...Your just a giant!" he screamed.

Ron heard the rest of the class come up behind him. "I think a better question is 'what is he doing here?'" He heard Izumo say.

"Yeah, _that_." Ron said, looking the little kid straight in the eyes.

The little kid looked around at all the other students, with there various weapons and strange clothing. "Your here to fight the monsters, aren't you?" he said, totally ignoring Ron's question.

Ron didn't know how to respond to that. "Uhh..." Ron looked over his shoulder at Bon, hoping for some silent advice. Bon gave him a look that said 'just bullshit.' "No, no. There's no such thing as monsters. We're just... a cleaning crew." Ron said, smiling.

"You lie!" The kid said, pointing his finger in Ron's face. "I know because your one of them, a monster! You have pointy ears, and pointy teeth..."

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Sure, I may look a bit odd, but it doesn't mean I'm a mon..."

"...And a tail!" The little kid said. Now that made Ron gulp, as well as curl up his tail behind his back. "And your friend is one too!" He said, pointing over Ron's shoulder at Rin, who tried to quickly and nonchalantly stuff his tail into his pants. "I've been able to see them ever since I got sick when my father bought this place. But nobody at school will believe me, they make fun of me! But now I have you on video and everybody will see that I'm not a lair!" he said, waving the camera around.

"Hmm." Ron smiled. "I'll be taking that." He said, snatching the camera with his free hand, and then tossed it over his shoulder to Renzo, who nearly dropped it on the concrete floor as he caught it.

"Hey! GIVE IT BACK!" The kid screamed.

"We will." Ron said. "As soon as my friend over there deletes the memory."

"NO NO NO NO NO!" The little kid screamed and thrashed as he tried to hit Ron, pretty aimlessly, considering Ron had him extended out at arm's length. "You can't do this!" He said as his eyes started to tear up.

Then, Ron set the kid back down the ground, which was apparently such a surprise that it warranted a halt in the child's crying. "Listen, kid." Ron said, kneeling down so that he was once again eye level with the kid. "Forget about the monsters, they're scary, but they are all just in your head, you can wish them away any time you please." Ron reached out and ruffled the little kids hair. "If you ask me, it's the humans that you've got to be worried about."

Something began to glow behind the kids eyes. "Is that what you fear, Fear-Demon?" The voice came from the little kid, but it was higher pitched, and layered, it wasn't his voice. It was... demonic. It was at this time that Ron noticed the little kid was standing in a shadow cast by the crates, a shadow that appeared to be crawling up his leg...

…

**Thanks for reading! There are probably a fuck ton of spelling and grammatical errors here, but good news, before I update this story again I'm going to do a full read through of it and clean it up. And allow me to thank those who have stuck with me regardless of my total lack of proof reading.**

**Please review!**


	10. The American Devil is In Hot Pursuit

** Hello patient readers. I finished proof reading this entire story and have updated all the chapters with proper corrections. Boy, do I ever suck at grammar, and typing in general. I applaud all of you who have actually put up with how awful it was. When I write, my mind has a tendency to move faster than my hands can, so I end up splicing sentences together or simply leaving words out entirely, but now I believe I have fixed all such problems, making this story much easier to understand. **

** That being said, I was wondering if anyone of my readers would want to be a proof-reader for future chapters of this story, as well as a critic, willing to give feedback and suggestions before I post new chapters. Leave me a review saying so if you are interested, and I will PM you. However, I'm only gonna pick one, so don't take it personally if I don't respond to you. **

** And to LoviROMA17: Thanks for the info, I fixed this in my update, if you ever notice anything else like this, feel free to tell me.**

...

Ron jumped back from the child and pulled his gun out of his belt. The shadow, almost like a slime, snaked it's way up the little boy's leg in a flash, completely covering him. His eyes turned a blood red and his teeth extended out into sharp pointy spikes that littered his mouth. "ThIS bodY is MiNE!" The high pitched, raspy voice of the darkling echoed in the locker room. The shadow that covered the little boy's body was like a liquid and gas at the same time, moving around almost like a living oil. The little boy became a blind spot, impossible to focus on.

Ron heard a smashing noise as Shima dropped the camera. At this, the demon dashed forward, around and in between the legs of the cram school students, moving with unnatural speed. They all whipped around to see it standing by the wooden door that led into the larger factory. It's oily skin sizzled in the light, as if it was slowly being burned off. Ron brought his weapon to bear, aiming down the sights at the possessed boy. "CaTch mE if YOu cAN!" It shouted as it dissolved into a liquid shadow and seeped through the cracks in the door to the other side.

Suguro grabbed Ron's arm, forcing him to lower his pistol. "Put that thing down!" Bon shouted. "You have live ammunition loaded in that gun."

"I think that's the point." Ron growled.

"No." Izumo said. "For once, I agree with Bon. We can't use weapons against it. When the demon isn't powerful enough to protect it's vessel here on earth, you can't simply shoot a demon with a human host, as you risk killing the very person your trying to save, especially if it's a child."

"Blessed or not, bullets are bullets." Bon said.

"Shouldn't we call this in and let the real exorcists handle it?" All eyes turned to Konekomaru as he spoke. "Before, it was just about exterminating pests, but now the life of a child hangs in the balance." he said.

Ron's brow creased. "Absolutely not. We didn't come all the way out here to pack up and leave the minute something went wrong." He said.

"But, Ron..." Konekomaru started.

"Konekomaru, trust me." Ron said.

After a moment, Konekomaru sighed and nodded. "Okay." he said.

Ron half smiled. "Alright, is everyone on board?" He said.

"Yeah!" Rin said, throwing his fist in the air. At this, everyone gave a nod, some more grudgingly than others, but nodded none the less.

"Okay." Ron said. "Time for brain storming and make it fast. Who's got ideas?"

"We do have the blue flames of Satan at our disposal." Renzo said, motioning to Rin. "Can't we just have Rin bake the entire place? That should scare the Darklings away."

Konekomaru shook his head. "Once again, we can't use lethal force, the risk of hurting that kid is to high. Plus, We can't damage the equipment in here." He said.

"Ron," Bon said, looking toward the team leader. "Have you got anything?"

Ron scratched his chin. "Yes!" He said, snapping his fingers. "But it's gonna be tricky to pull off. Everybody gather around." He said, pulling the map he had been given out of his jacket. The other students quickly formed a semicircle around him. "Now, we're here, at the southeast corner of the factory. Running along the west end of the factory is the highway we came here on. About a hundred or so yards up the road from the northern most wall of this place is a road side construction site with a three-or-so high intensity industrial floodlights. Konekomaru, Izumo, and Shemie, it's your gonna be your job to go fetch those floodlights and set them up outside of the door opposite us, at the northwest corner. Everybody fallowing so far?" General nods fallowed. "Okay good. Now, I'd bet that little fucker is waiting on the other side of that door for one of us to come through so he can toss some heavy-duty factory equipment in our faces." Ron said, pointing to the wooden door that the demon had evaporated through. "What we're going to do is chase him toward the door where the lights are set up; herd him like cattle. Me and Rin are going to chase him from the ground floor, through the factory..."

"Bullshit!" Suguro interrupted. "Both you and Rin pull this lone wolf crap, I'm not gonna put up with it!" He said.

"Let me finish." Ron said, glaring at Suguro. "Rin and I are going to be the only two to go through that door, because we are the most likely to survive getting _impaled_ by a piece of _re-bar_, or getting _beaned upside the head_ with a _torque wrench_."

"I don't like the sound of either of those things." Rin said, cringing.

"Yeah, well with luck, we will both go unscathed." Ron said, brushing off Rin's concern. "And Suguro, don't worry, your going to be right up in the action too. You're going to be providing cover fire for me and Rin from the east catwalk as we herd the demon toward the northwest door."

"Cover fire?" Izumo said. "Didn't we just go over this, you can't use live ammo on a possessed person!"

"The concept of cover fire isn't always to kill what your shooting at. It can be about fear, simply scaring your enemy to move where you want him to move." Ron said.

Bon nodded in approval. "Shooting _at_ the demon, not _shooting_ the demon. If you see the difference." He said.

"Exactly." Ron said. "Shima, you go with Bon, keep the rest of the infestation off his back."

"You got it!" Shima said, pulling his staff out of his shirt.

"Wait." Konekomaru said. "How are we supposed to move those floodlights? They probably way more than me, Izumo, and Shemie combined."

"Use one of the vans we came here on." Ron said without missing a beat.

"What if Shura and Yukio..."

"Don't take 'no' for an answer. Yukio said that nothing was out-of-bounds for this mission, just like it would be in real world. If he says you can't use the vans, just quote him." Ron said, smiling.

Konekomaru couldn't help but give a chuckle to. "Yeah, that should be good." He said.

"Alright then, lets go! Move, move, move!" Ron shouted.

Bon and Shima jumped into the cargo elevator, the electric engine sputtered a little bit, but began pulling them up none the less. Konekomaru ran over to and opened one of the metal doors to the outside, holding it open for Izumo and Shemie as they ran out, before fallowing himself. Rin and Ron were left alone in the room.

Ron turned to Rin. "You ready?" He asked.

"Hell yes!" Rin said, drawing his sword. He immediately erupted into blue flame, as his ears grew longer and his canines extended and sharpened.

"You know." Ron said. "I suppose I didn't get to tell you this last time, when you were trying to cut me in a half with that sword, but that's actually pretty fucking cool."

Rin smiled, exposing his rows of sharp teeth. "You jealous?" He said.

Ron chuckled. "How about we have a rematch after I get my pistol back, then we'll see whose jealous." He said.

"You're on! Now lets get going."

"Alright, get behind me." Ron said as he got into position in front of the wooden door. "Fallow my lead." he said.

Ron transferred all of his wait to his left foot, reared back, and kicked the door in. It flung open, and smashed against the wall, clapping like thunder. Ron quickly exited the locker room, gun drawn, and entered the main factory. For that first second, the only light in the place was the moon light shining in from the windows near the top of the factory, above the catwalks, illuminating the silhouette of the dormant assembly lines and other equipment. Then Rin's blue flame came up behind Ron as he exited the little room, creating a circle of light that surrounded the two. "Rin, turn it up a little bit." Ron said.

"You got it." Rin said. He increased the intensity of his flames, making the circle of blue light protecting them a little bit larger.

Ron noticed that the shadows on the very edge of the circle were moving unnaturally. It was like they were fighting the barrier of light, trying to get in. Ron didn't have much time to think about this before something large came flying at them from out of the darkness.

"Get down!" Ron shouted as he ducked, letting the projectile fly over his head. Then he heard a smashing noise. "Rin, are you alright?" He said, looking back up, and up his pistol, scanning for the source of the attack.

"I didn't get hit." Rin said. "It was close though." He said, his voice shaking slightly.

Ron turned around to see the piece of re-bar had imbedded itself in the wall about two inches from Rin's head. "Oh shit." he said.

"CaTCH mE if yOu cAN!" The shrill voice of the darkling emerged from the shadows.

"Grrrr." Ron growled. "Come on Rin!" He said.

The two took off in the direction of the voice. They could here the Darkling laughing as they proceeded forward. "PEttY woRms! YoU dON'T deSERVE to Call yourselVES DEmons!" The Darkling shouted out.

Then Ron saw a flash of metal out of the corner of his eye. "Hit the ground!" He said, dropping to floor. Rin did the same, just in time for a tool box to fly over them and collide with the wall, smashing it to pieces. Ron unclipped his radio from his waist, and brought it too his mouth. "Suguro! Where's my cover fire? Me and Rin can barely move down here." He said as he stood up.

Suddenly, a whole damn tool _cabinet_ came flying at Ron from the edge of Rin's circle of light. Rin jumped in front of him, and brought his sword across, slicing the cabinet in half and sending the pieces of it flying around them. "You okay?" Rin said, looking back at Ron.

"Yeah. I think so." Ron said, a little shaken. "Considering I was almost turned into a pancake by that thing." He said.

The Radio crackled. "Ron, are you there?" Bon's voice came loud and clear through the radio.

"Yes!" Ron practically shouted into the radio. "What the hell is going on?" He said.

"I was about to ask you the same thing." Bon said.

"I almost had my face remolded by a tool box." Ron said through gritted teeth. "Why aren't I hearing any automatic weapons fire from up there?"

"Not my fault." Bon said. "I can't acquire the target. It's to dark in here."

"Shit." Ron said. "Okay, use your tac-light as a spot light, and have Shima do the same with his flashlight, and I'll do the same with mine down here."

"Sounds good. But lets wrap this up quickly, me and Shima are seeing some weird movement up here."

"You got it." Ron said. He clipped his Radio back to his belt, and brought his gun to bear, pressing the button on the side of the PEQ box for the flash light. The bean of white light shot out beyond Rin's protective circle. Once again, the shadows seemed to move unnaturally, parting around the the beam of Ron's tac light like a heard of animals parting around the path of a predator. "You see that?" Ron said.

"I'm doing my best not to." Was Rin's response.

Ron scanned the surrounding area with his flashlight. They were right next to one of the six assembly lines, up against eastern wall. The beam from the taclight scanned over the surrounding equipment, particularly searching the area to the left of them, where the tool box had come from. Ron was about to tell Rin, who was standing guard, that it would probably be a good time to move forward. But then his beam fell on something, for a split second, a flash of black, a pair of red eyes. Ron was reaching for his radio to ask Bon if he had seen it, when automatic weapons fire erupted from above them, pretty much answering his question.

"YOu DARE sAcriFICE thIs bOY, ExORcisT?" The voice of the darkling boomed out.

Bon and Shima were tracking it with there lights now, with Bon putting sustained but controlled fire on the darkling, who was jumping and running around the equipment that surrounded Rin and Ron.

"Come on, Rin, lets get after it!" Ron said as the two of them took off after the demon.

They ran at the darkling where it was hiding from Bon's fire behind a control box on the assembly line. Ron brought his pistol up, and fired two shots that impacted the concrete right at the Darkling's feat. The little monster screamed and darted away, past the machinery, but Shima and Suguro were able to keep the light trained on it as Ron and Rin perused it, forward and to the left, perfect.

Ron grabbed his radio from his belt as the two sprinted after the darkling, ducking and weaving over, under, and around the deadly equipment in the factory. "Izumo, have you got those lights yet?" He said into the radio. Suddenly, the darkling turned around and grabbed a nearby two-by-four that was leaning up against the wall, before hurling it at them. Ron brought his pistol up and and fired three times, turning the large piece of wood into nothing but splinters. The Darkling squeaked, and scrambled forward, perfectly in the direction of the northwestern door. The G36c once again erupted above them as Suguro put suppressing fire on the darkling, further herding it toward where they wanted it to go.

The radio crackled. "We're in the van." Izumo said. "We're almost to the lights. How much time do we have?" She asked.

"At this rate, you've got about three-to-five minutes before me and Rin reach the northwestern door. Are you gonna make it?" Ron said as they continued to sprint after the darkling.

There was a pause, then "We'll do our best."

"You'd better pray to god that's enough." He said, before putting the radio back on hist belt.

"You WONT kILL tHIS CHIld." The Darkling shouted as they perused it. "I kNOw yOur kIND ,You FeAR DeMons neVER dId hAVe The gUTS To tAKE a lIfe!"

"Don't test me!" Ron yelled back. He raised his pistol and fired two more shots in the direction of the darkling, the bullets impacting the ground around it.

This time, the darkling scurried up a control panel and pulled a leaver, which sent a large mechanical arm swinging in front of Ron. Rin once again jumped in front of him, and sliced the arm in apart as it was about to clothes-line them. "Don't do something your gonna regret." Rin said as they continued after the Darkling.

"Whenever have I done anything like that?" Ron said sarcastically.

Rin and Ron chased the darkling down in between two of the assembly lines at the northern end of the factory. Ron raised his pistol and fired again in the direction of the demon. It screeched and turned left, jumping over a yellow warning barricade. Ron and Rin fallowed, vaulting over the barricade in pursuit of the darkling. They realized all to late that they had jumped right into one of the assembly lines, the bottom of which rested about five feet below the floor of the factory, plus the height of the barricade. It would have been fine they would have been expecting it, but they weren't, so it made for an unpleasant landing.

"HAHA!" The Darkling laughed. "StUpiD ExORcIsts!" it said as Ron and Rin fell to the floor.

"Fuck!" Ron shouted as he picked himself up. "Come on!" He said as he began to sprint forward again, Rin in tow. The Darkling was just barely in their sight now, running straight down the line. Ron grabbed the radio off his belt. "Suguro, we're chasing the Darkling down the northwestern most line, we'll hit the north wall of this place in less than thirty seconds. It's your job to make sure this thing turns left toward the northwestern door. If the darkling turns right, the plan goes to shit."

"You've got it." Bon said. "I've got about half a clip of ammo left, I'll make it count."

Suddenly, the end of the line, both literally and metaphorically, came into view. It was basically just a dead end; a five foot tall wall and a ladder that lead out of the trench that was the assembly line. The Darkling got to it about five seconds before Ron and Rin, but it took a second for it to scamper up the wall, allowing Rin and Ron to get closer. The Darkling reached the top, and stood up on the platform at the end of the assembly line, deciding if it wanted to left or right. _Left, Left, Left! _Ron repeated in his head. _Goddammit __Suguro, where are you?_ Then, to Ron's horror, the darkling swiveled to the right, and crouched, about to scamper off. Then, **BAM! BAM! BAMBAM! **The floor in front of the darkling exploded as bullets impacted the concrete. It screeched in terror and did a one eighty, taking off in the direction of the northwestern door just as Ron and Rin reached the end of the line.

"Time to finish this." Rin said as they hopped up onto the platform.

The door was less than fifty feet away from them, and the darkling was headed right to it. It turned around just as it reached the door, and waved to them. "So lOng sUCKeRs!" It said. Then it evaporated through the door.

"Funny." Ron said. "I was about to say the same thing."

Ron and Rin busted through the metal doors. Both of their hearts instantly sank when they realized that it was still black as night on the other side of the doors. They watched the Darkling start to run off into the night, away from the factory. _Jesus, they must not have made it in time. _Ron thought. Then, _**Chink! BZZZZZZZZ. **_The noise of a switch being flipped and an electrical surge was music to Ron's ears. The entire area flooded with brilliant light, blinding both Rin and Ron, but not before they watched the darkling get torn from the body of the boy, like washing away dirt in water. The blackness that was the demon dissolved in the light, leaving no trace of it's existence.

"Quick Nee!" They heard Shemie shout. "The wounds made by darklings can caused severe skin damage if not treated right away!"

When Ron and Rin regained their vision, they were able to see Shemie kneeling over the little boy, applying some kind of leaves to his skin. Then Konekomaru and Izumo came out from where they were behind the lights. Izumo went to go help Shemie with the little boy, kneeling over him on the other side and helping Shemie wrap her leaves around the little boy's limbs. Konekomaru on the other hand, went straight to where Ron and Rin were standing, just outside the door of the factory. "You guys alright?" He said.

"I thought I was gonna have a heart attack." Ron said.

"Ditto." Rin said.

Konekomaru laughed. "I'll take that as a 'yes'." He said.

Suddenly, Ron's radio crackled. "What's going on down there? You guys get 'em?" Bon asked.

Ron grabbed the radio off his belt, and with what little strength he had left, pulled it up to his mouth. "Yeah, we got 'em." He said.

"Was it close?" Bon said.

"Yeah, you could say that."

...

Shura and Yukio were, of course, watching all of this unfold from on the computer monitors from the comfort of the surveillance van. They sat back-to-back in the folding chairs, each one of them watching a set of monitors on each side of the van. For the entire ordeal, they hadn't said a word to each other, just an occasional grunt or other such sound of unpleasantness.

"Your boy didn't do bad, considering the situation." Yukio said suddenly. "Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm not going to grill him in the debrief."

"My 'boy'?" Shura said. "You make it sound like I'm his _handler_ or something."

"Well isn't that what you are? Why else would Micheal Ferus pick you to raise him, except to keep an eye over him and make sure he didn't hurt anybody."

Shura wasn't sure she knew how to respond that. The way Yukio had said it, it sounded kind of like an accusation. "You never met him, did you?" She said after a few seconds.

"Meet who?" Yukio said.

"Micheal. You never got that chance to meet him, did you?"

"Can't say I did. I heard plenty of stories about him though, most of them in good humor, But honestly, when I heard Ron's name for the first time, it didn't even occur to me that they might be related."

"That explains it." Shura said. "If you ever met him, ever got a chance to talk to him, you'd know that all he ever wanted was a good parent to raise his son."

"But he chose you." Yukio said. Shura turned around and slapped him on the back of the head so hard that his glasses flew off and smashed into the monitor that was right infront of him. "Fuck!" Yukio said, holding the growing bump on his cranium. "What the hell was that for?"

"Like you don't know!" Shura said.

"Sorry, I'm suddenly experiencing short term memory loss." Yukio said jokingly. "Maybe it has something to do with the brain damage you just caused me."

"You always did have a soft head." Shura said, ruffling Yukio's hair, before turning back around to look at her monitors.

Yukio picked up his glasses up off the counter and examined them. They appeared intact, maybe a little loose at the joints, but usable none the less. He took his cloth out of his shirt pocket and wiped the dirt off of them. "Have you told him yet?" Yukio said as he put his glasses back on.

"Told him about what?" Shura said.

"The registration."

Shura sighed. "No, I haven't, because I know he wont react well to having to throw in his lot with the church."

"What makes you say that? He seems pretty level headed for what he is."

"There's a couple of things. First of all, he has this total intolerance for bullshit, especially bureaucratic bullshit. You see, he's never really had a long term _goal _or _dream, _so hes never had to go through something unpleasant or morally unjustifiable as part of accomplishing something bigger. You get what I'm saying?"

"Yeah. I think so." Yukio said.

"Good. And on top of that, he has what you might call a strong sense of... righteous indignation." Shura said.

"You mean justifiable punishment?"

"Exactly. If he sees something that he deems to be wrong or amoral, he will act on it with extreme prejudice, totally regardless of who's side he's supposed to be on."

Yukio nodded, thinking about that. "So basically, he doesn't believe that the end justifies the means?" He said.

"Yeah, basically. Do you see why that could get him into trouble with the Pedophile Mafia?" Shura said.

Yukio couldn't help but laugh. "It kills me that you still call it that." He said.

"It's not a stupid nickname, it's a description." Shura said, with utmost certainty in her voice. Then something occurred to her. "You and Rin didn't have to go through registration, did you?"

Yukio shook his head. "No, me and my brother are special cases as you know, so the Vatican waved it on Mephisto's word that we were not only safe, but also useful. You had to go through it though, didn't you?"

Shura began playing with a lock of her hair. "Hmm, I guess." She said. "I had to go through it when I got my Tamer miester. But registration is completely different for Tamers and Familiars than it is for half-bloods and full demons. From what I understand, registration for Ron is going to be a bit more... _brutal_, than it was for me."

"Hmm." Was Yukio's only response. "Well, we should probably go pick them up now." Yukio said, standing up from the folding chair. He walked to the back of the van and opened the doors, letting the cool breeze flow into the back of the van, which had grown hot and sticky. Yukio turned around to look at Shura, who was still sitting in her folding chair. "Well, are you coming?" He said.

Shura yawned. "No, It's just gonna take a minute to get to where they are, so I think I'll just hang back here." She said.

Yukio shrugged. "Suit yourself." He said.

He hopped out of the back, closing the door behind him. Shura listened as he walked around to the front and got into the driver's seat. After a moment, the van's engine sputtered to life, and she felt a little tug as Yukio accelerated. Shura sat quietly for most of the ride, thinking about how she was going to explain the registration to Ron.

"Shit." She said.

…

**Thanks for reading! Reviews are appreciated!**


	11. The American Devil Gets Debriefed

**Special Mini-chapter time! Not really though, I didn't want to put this with the last chapter because I couldn't come up with a good transition for it, and I didn't want to put it with the next chapter because I doesn't really fit with the mood or theme of the next chapter. So, it has become it's own mine chapter. **

** However, I still consider this exchange to be one of the most important in the story, as it expands upon Ron and Yukio's (Platonic!) relationship, and is important to their development as characters.**

** Enjoy...**

...

Ron and Suguro sat in the debriefing room, alone. The students had been told that they would be debriefed on the mission, but they had assumed that _they all _would be debriefed. But, as it happened, Suguro and Ron had been pulled aside when they had arrived back at the cram school, while everyone else was told to go back to their dorms and get a good nights rest for classes the fallowing day. Suguro and Ron had been led into a small, poorly lit room with two metal folding chairs facing a lone desk. The teacher that had led them there told them to take a seat in the chairs and wait for the debriefing officer to arrive, before leaving them alone. But after twenty whole minutes of sitting in silence, waiting was getting a little old.

"What the hell." Ron said, looking over at Suguro. "Is this some kind of cruel and unusual punishment?"

Suguro shrugged. "What would we be being punished for?" He said.

"Oh, your about to find out." They heard Yukio's voice behind them.

The two students whipped around to see Yukio standing in front of the door, a thick file folder in his hand. "Whoa." Suguro said. "I didn't even here him come in."

"No shit. My creepiness meter just had an overload." Ron said.

Yukio ignored their comments, and walked past them, taking a seat behind the desk. "So..." Yukio said, dropping the file folder down on the metal desk. "Lets talk about the mission. The objective, specifically. It was to eradicate an infestation of Darklings. Do we agree?" All Suguro and Ron could do was nod. "Good. Now, lets go over it shall we? During the course of the mission, you two combined fired over one-hundred-and-fifty rounds of ammunition, you damaged or outright _destroyed_ hundred-of-thousands-of-dollars worth of factory equipment, and endangered the life of a child. All to exorcise... _one _darkling." Yukio said, holding up his index finger and moving it around to enforce his point. "Suguro," He said, lowering his finger. "you are banned from carrying a firearm on a mission until you re-take and pass the written examine for the dragoon miester." Yukio reached into his pocket and pulled out a bronze key. "This key will take you to your dorm. You may leave." He said, tossing the key to Suguro.

Suguro caught it. "B...But..." He stammered. Ron looked over at Suguro, expecting to see him sad, but he actually looked kind of surprised, like he was expecting something worse.

"What, is that not good enough for you, do you want a worse punishment?" Yukio said. Suguro shook his head violently. "That's what I thought. Now get out of here." Yukio said. Suguro and Ron looked at each other. Ron shrugged, and they both got up to leave. "Not you Ron." Yukio said. "I still need to speak with you."

Suguro looked at Ron with an expression that said 'good luck.' and then turned and left, closing the door tight behind him. Ron flopped back into his folding chair and looked at Yukio, who was drumming his fingers on the desk. "Well, this is awkward." Ron said.

"I told you not to fuck it up." Yukio said.

"Yeah, yeah whatever." Ron said. "How's that little kid doing?"

That took Yukio by surprise. He hadn't expected Ron to be so interesting in the well being of the child. "Um... he's fine. Shemie did a good job tending to his wounds, and we returned him to his father, the owner of the factory. He was very grateful. Why do you ask?" Yukio said.

"Well, like you said, I fucked it up, I just want to know that I didn't fuck it up for nothing." Ron said.

"Is that why you didn't call it in?" Yukio said.

"What?" Ron said.

"Right after the little boy was possessed by the demon, Konekomaru made the suggestion that you should back off, call it in, and let the professionals handle the situation due to it's ever increasing potency. Do you remember?"

"Yeah, so..."

"You paid little attention to his suggestion." Yukio continued, cutting Ron off. "It's important to pay attention to your team members, their input is just as good as yours."

"Are you accusing me of something..."

"That's not my point. Now stop interrupting me." Yukio drummed his fingers on the desk again.

Ron leaned back in the chair and folded his arms. "Go ahead, monologue my ears off. You wont hear another peep out of me." He said mockingly.

Yukio gave a low growl and bared his sharp teeth, and Ron offered the same in return. The growl of a fear demon was in a low octave, but it was piercing and fast. Where as Yukio's own growl was even lower, and more demanding, less about instilling fear and more about demanding respect. They went on like that for another minute or two. Then, "That's enough!" Yukio said suddenly. "I'm not stooping to the level of animal to win some childish stand off with you."

"Okay then!" Ron said. "Make your point and lets get on with it." He said, looking away from Yukio.

Yukio stood up so fast that he knocked over the chair he had been sitting in. He pointed a menacing finger at Ron as he began to speak. "_My point _is that I think your own personal need for the feeling of accomplishment endangered your team members tonight, along with that little boy. Why else would you not want to call for help? You chose to see the mission through because of your self centered need to feel like the hero! You pull shit like that again and I can guaranty that there will be no place for you here."

"You know what your problem is?" Ron said, also standing up now, his tail thrashing back and forth. "It's trust. I might not even want to stick around with your lot. You know why? Because you people fucking scare me!" Ron yelled. Yukio's eyes widened with every word. "Nobody here fucking trusts each other, and it scares the shit out of me! You tell your brother you love him, but you walk half a step behind him so that he's always in your vision. Shura is practically your fucking family, just like she is mine, but she doesn't fucking trust you or Rin, and you don't trust her. And you know Bon? He's a great dude, don't get me wrong, but for Christ's sake, he has a fucking codependency complex, he doesn't trust anybody can do anything on their own, and he feels like he always has to protect his friends! And you know who he thinks he has to protect them from? _You and Rin_, Yukio, you and Rin."

Yukio's brow creased, he could feel his temperature rising. "How can you be so quick to judge us? You've been here for all of a month, if that! Everything I do is to protect my brother. I _do _love him! But he's dangerous, I never know when his emotions will take control of him and he'll go on a rampage! I CAN'T TRUST HIM!" And with that, Yukio erupted into blue flames, and his tail, which he usually kept hidden, burned a whole in the back of his exorcist trench coat and sprouted out behind him. Ron took a step back as the flames licked at his clothes, singeing them. Yukio looked down at his hands, at the fire in them. It was the first time he had let them out since that night on the top of the academy.

Then Ron did something unexpected. He stepped forward, into the flame that surrounded Yukio. It seemed to not affect him at all now. He reached out, and placed his hand on Yukio's shoulder. Suddenly, Yukio could feel his flames retreating, as a deep and piercing cold erupted from where Ron had touched him. It brought Yukio back to a different time, when he lived at the monastery. On cold winter days, when the monastery would become super heated by it's primitive and difficult to control central heating system, he would often go out the front door with nothing but a t-shirt and some jeans on, and simply stand on the deck, letting the chilling cold wash over him, relieving him of the heat. He felt the same feeling now, with Ron's hand on his shoulder. He noticed that Ron appeared to be growing hot under the collar; sweat poured down his face as it grew red hot. It was like an equal and opposite reaction. Fire and ice.

"You can trust him." Ron said. "Because he trusts you." Then Ron took his hand off of Yukio's shoulder. Yukio's flames were completely subdued now, he felt calm.

Yukio walked past Ron and fell into one of the folding chairs, burying his head in his hands. "Is it really that simple?" he said.

Ron sighed. "Yukio, one of these days you're going to have to realize that it doesn't matter what happens between dawn and dusk, and that, at the end of the day, everyone's just a human being." he said.

That made Yukio look up, but he couldn't bring himself to look Ron in the eye, so he just stared at the wall. "Even the ones who aren't?" he asked.

"_Especially_ the ones who aren't." Ron said.

After a few seconds of silence, Yukio reached into his trench coat and pulled out a bronze key, similar to the one he had given Suguro. "Here, this will take you back to our dorm." He said, holding the key for Ron to take, but still not looking at him.

Ron took the key. "Are you coming?" He asked.

"I need a couple minutes." Yukio said.

Ron nodded, and walked to the door at the back of the debriefing room. He inserted the magic key, and turned. The door swung open to reveal the hallway of the mostly-abandoned boy's dorm that he shared with Rin and Yukio. He stepped through the threshold, and turned around, but first just took a moment to observe Yukio, facing away from him. Then he closed the door, leaving Yukio to his own devices.

"Hey, what's going on?" Ron heard Rin say.

Ron turned to see Rin, standing in the hallway in his boxers, with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. "You getting ready for bed?" Ron asked.

"Yeah. Got class tomorrow, same old same old. What happened at the debriefing?" Rin asked.

Ron shrugged. "Oh, nothing much." he said.

…

**Thanks for reading! Please review! **

** P.s. Still looking for a proof-reader if anybody is interested.**


	12. The American Devil is Sick

**Hey awesome readers, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has reviewed this story, you really are the ones that keep it going. Just wanted to say I haven't updated this story in a whole two months, it was the end the school and I had to study for finals and complete projects. Took the creative juice right out of me, along with all my energy. If you haven't forgotten about me, I applaud you.**

** On with the story.**

** …**

Ron sat at his desk, and quietly recited scripture to himself in preparation for an upcoming exam. He couldn't sleep after the fight in the debriefing room. Yukio's reaction had troubled him, and he wasn't entirely sure if they had left each other on a good note. He half suspected Yukio to walk into his room and commence beating the crap out of him, or at least attempting to. _No, Yukio's too controlled__ for that, _Ron thought. But then he remembered how Yukio had literally erupted into flames when the argument reached its apex. _At least... I HOPE he's too controlled for that._

Distrust is a form of fear, so Ron had been able to sniff it out pretty much immediately, and it had been at the back of his mind ever since he'd really gotten to know the cram the school students. In fact, being around it constantly was affecting his health, and he suspected it was the source of the stomach pains he'd been having recently. Then of course last night, in his fury, he had let slip what he'd been thinking, and he still couldn't be sure of the consequences of what that might bring. _Maybe it will turn out alright, _He thought, _Who knows, this could be a small step towards fixing this trust thing. _He liked the friends he had made here, and it was something he wanted to hold onto, preserve, and bringing this trust problem they all had out into the open might mess that up. But, an instinct inside of him, possibly some animalistic demon instinct, was telling him that his own personal self-preservation could be threatened if the other students didn't get over their trust issues. Ron chuckled to himself. _The fear demon is going to stop the fear. I wonder if this is good for my health. _

Then, he heard the janitor's closet open and shut as Yukio entered the dorm. In response to the noise, Ron quickly reached up onto the desk and wrapped his right hand around the grip of the pistol Shura had given him, which had been resting right next to his scripture notes. He didn't take it off the table, instead letting it lie there, hand wrapped around it, waiting. He heard the floorboards creak as Yukio made his way to his room. The footsteps stopped right in front of Ron's door, followed by silence. After a few tense moments, the footsteps continued, getting further and further away until he finally heard the door to twins' room open and shut again. Ron looked down on the desk to see his hand still clasping the pistol. "Shit." He mumbled under his breath, bringing the gun close to his face for examination. "And I accuse _them _of having trust issues."

Taking a closer look, he noticed then just how dirty the weapon had gotten in the chaos of chasing the darkling through the factory. Powder residue coated the slide and muzzle, and dust from the factory had imbedded itself into every little opening and groove on the weapon. He decided he might as well clean it, as he didn't have anything better to do and he didn't want to be walking around with a dirty weapon. He didn't have any cleaning oil, unfortunately, so for tonight he was just gonna have to make do with paper towels and water. He took the magazine out and put it on the desk, removed the slide and barrel assembly, and laid all the pieces out on the desk. As he cleaned it, he remembered what Shura had said after the mission, when they had gotten back to the cram school and he had tried to return it to her: "_You keep it." _She had said. "_You need another one anyway. Can't always be relying on __the one containing your demon powers. Plus, I think he would've wanted you to have it." _Then she'd just walked off without another word. Her words rang in Ron's ears _...He would've wanted you to have it. _He thought about what she might've meant while he cleaned the grip and lower receiver of the H&K. Glancing down, he noticed some letters crudely etched into the plastic near the bottom of the grip. He took a closer look, bringing it very close to his face. Etched into the side of the grip was: **M.A.F.**

__"Micheal Antonio Ferus." Ron read out loud, "Dad."

…

**BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!**

Ron woke with such a start at the sound of his alarm that he fell backwards out of his chair, smacking his head on the floor and crushing his tail beneath him. "Shit!" He groaned, standing up. "I must have fallen asleep at my desk last night." Suddenly, he felt a swelling pain in the back of his head where it had impacted the floor. He bent over, holding the back of his head with his hands. "God that hurts." A piercing pain erupted at the base of his tail. He stood up straight again, and tried to move his tail back and forth. It worked, but it felt sore. "Damn, for a second there I thought I broke it."

**BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! **The alarm shrieked again. He reached over to where it was on his nightstand and ripped it right out of the wall. "How do you like that, you _sonofabitch_." Ron hissed to the inanimate object. He allowed the clock to slip through his fingers, smashing into the pieces and scattering bits of plastic and metal across the floor.

Ron glanced over his desk at the unorganized jumble of notes and the various gun pieces that were strewn about it. Thinking back, he remembered that he'd finished cleaning the gun, but he must have passed out before he could finish putting it back together. He picked up the barrel and the lower receiver, pushing the two together before reaching for the slide and sliding it over the barrel, allowing it click into place. He worked the slide a couple of times, making sure it was smooth, before aiming at the wall and squeezing the trigger, watching as the hammer dropped and hit the firing pin. Once he was satisfied that everything was working, he tucked the gun, along with its two magazines, into his belt.

He cleaned up the random pieces of paper on his desk and stuffed them into his bag. He realized he probably wouldn't have time to shower, so he threw on a clean t-shirt and put on some antiperspirant before slinging his book bag over his shoulder and heading for the door. As he touched the handle, he heard his new favorite sound as it shrilled loudly: **BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! **He immediately twirled on his heel, a look of total psychopathic rage spreading across his face. Sure enough, there on the floor, was his alarm clock, beeping away while the digital reading of the time flickered on its screen. "How the hell are you still alive?" He exclaimed angrily, rushing over to where he'd dropped it on the floor. It responded with: **BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! **Ron responded by curb-stomping it into giblets. "Yeah! Fuck you!" He yelled at the pieces for good measure. Then, having made sure that the alarm clock was thoroughly dead and adequately insulted, he turned and left the room, heading toward the smell of breakfast coming from the kitchen.

As he rounded the corner into the dining area, Rin poked his head out of the kitchen. "Hey, I heard some weird noises coming from your room. Everything alright?" He asked.

"Yeah." Ron replied as he put his book bag down and sat at the table closest to the kitchen. "It was just my alarm clock."

Rin looked a little confused at first, but then just shrugged and ducked back into the kitchen. "Whatever you say…" He mumbled.

Ron sat and savored the smell of Rin's cooking. It was then that he noticed something missing from the usual morning air; the familiar aroma of distrust. "Hey, Rin." Ron called out.

Rin once again stuck his head out of the kitchen. "Yeah, what?" he asked.

"Where's Yukio? He's usually up and about long before either of us, isn't he?" Ron said.

Rin scratched his head, trying to think. "I don't know for sure. He left about an hour ago, said he 'needed some space to think'." Rin put on one of his big goofy smiles. "I guess being around me was suffocating his brain." Rin joked.

Ron laughed. "Yeah, I guess so." He replied, playing along, but he knew the real reason Yukio wanted some time to himself. He went distant for a second, remembering the confrontation of the night before.

"Hey," Rin called, snapping Ron out of his little reverie.

"Hmm?" Ron asked.

"Could I get your notes from Rituals and Summoning Circles class?" Rin asked.

Ron smiled. "Yeah, sure." He said.

"Awesome! If you'd said 'no', I probably would have poisoned your rice." Rin said matter-of-factly, grinning devilishly.

"It wouldn't have ended well for you." Ron sneered.

They both laughed. It was actually starting to look like a decent day.

…

Yukio sat on a bench, looking over one of the grassy student common areas on the True Cross campus. He leaned back, letting his shoulders and head slouch forward, and he tucked his hands into his pockets, totally abandoning his usually perfect upright posture. In the past, it was times when he felt like this that he sought the console of his father, Shiro. When he'd died, he'd left Yukio with few other outlets to express his feelings. He couldn't talk to Rin, for all the obvious reasons. He couldn't talk to Shura, as she barely ever let her own emotions slip, she probably wouldn't be too keen on listening to whining of others. He couldn't talk to Mephisto, because Mephisto was a goddamned sociopath. Yukio sighed deeply, leaning his head back and gazing up at the blue sky, trying to look for an answer among the clouds that drifted softly overhead.

"Sensei?" A girl's voice called out.

"Huh?" Yukio breathed, looking in the direction of the voice. His eyes fell upon Shiemi, looking timid as always and clutching her books tightly to her chest. He smiled wide; he had to admit that the girl looked cute in her school uniform. He quickly pushed these thoughts from his mind. As her teacher, he had to maintain some level of professional integrity... at least for the time being. He cleared his throat. "Yes, what is it, Shemie?" he asked, wiping the smile off his face.

"Umm... You were just looking so distant just now. Is something wrong?" She asked, genuinely worried.

Yukio allowed himself a small grin. He had always admired the girl and her ability to be so kind hearted, no matter what. "No...No, everything's fine." He answered, looking back out the grassy mall.

A slight frown spread across the girl's face. "Uh, okay. I guess I'll just get going then..." She mumbled shyly, turning away.

Yukio heard the girl begin to walk away. "Shiemi, wait." He called, looking down at the grass between his feet.

"What is it, Sensei?" She asked, turning back around to face Yukio.

"Could you... sit, for just a minute?" He asked, patting the place on the bench next to him.

"Um... Sure." Shiemi replied, walking around the bench and sitting down next to Yukio, clasping her books even tighter to herself. "Is there something you wanted to talk about?" She asked.

"Shemie, what do you think of my brother?"

Shemie's cheeks grew deep red, and she felt herself getting a little hot around the collar. "Uh...um...well...um...just...what do you mean?" She managed to stammer out.

Yukio sighed. "I don't know how to put it." He replied.

Shemie grew even redder. "I... I... I... Uh…" She choked.

"Do you trust him?" Yukio blurted out.

The redness instantly faded from the girl's face, only to be instantly replaced by look of mild disappointment. " Oh, well...of course. I don't see how anybody couldn't." She replied.

Yukio looked up, taken off-guard by the girl's response. "How do you figure?" He asked.

"Well... he's just so selfless. Everything he does, his motivation… is all about protecting the people around him. Every action he takes is for that cause. I've never seen him do or say anything out of greed. If you can't trust someone like that, who can you trust?" She asked.

Yukio sat in silence, processing that. Why was this _trust_ thing just so much more complicated for him? He sighed. "Shiemi, run along to class, I'll be there in a few minutes." he told her.

"Will you be alright?" Shemie asked, biting her lip worriedly.

Yukio smiled at her. "Yeah, I'll be fine." He replied.

She nodded, and without another word, stood up and walked off. Yukio remained sitting in his slouched pose. He looked up at the sky again, and closed his eyes, letting the sun beat down on him. He tried to clear his head, but he couldn't let go of what Ron had said to him the night before, "_...He trusts you." _The fear demon's words rang in Yukio's ear. Then there was Shiemi, _"...If you can't trust someone like that, who can you trust?"_ Yukio shook his head. Rin still hadn't proven to him that he was emotionally stable, so he had a just reason for not trusting his brother, no matter what anyone said. Or at least that's what he thought.

Yukio sat up straight on the bench, fixed his collar, and smoothed out his school uniform. He stood, and grabbed his exorcist's trench coat off the bench and walked away, pushing all of these things from his mind as he focused on today's lesson.

…

Ron's stomach situation had gotten worse as the day went on, but he put on his poker face and went about his classes as usual. The smell of distrust seemed to be growing exponentially worse; thicker, richer, and yet sickeningly stale. Still, he pushed on, through Demon Pharmacology, Rituals and Circles, and Scripture. He didn't want to be nuisance, but the problem wasn't going away, and as Physical Education grew dangerously close, he began to worry about the possibility of throwing up in the middle of class. Thankfully, though, they had a special hour-long lecture that was taking place before PE, so that would give his stomach to cool down, or at least he hoped it would.

As he and Rin walked down the corridor of the cram school toward the lecture hall, Ron spotted Suguro chatting with a student that he didn't recognize. Suguro had his arms folded, and his chin held high in the air with a big shit-eating grin across his face as he talked to the other student, who was looking up at Suguro with a look of shock and admiration.

"Hey, Bon." Ron called as he and Rin approached the other two students, "What are you mouthing off about now?" Ron asked jokingly.

Bon turned away from the other student to face Ron. "Oh, I was just telling this first year about our awesome mission last night."

"I didn't know that was something to brag about." Ron smirked, raising an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?" Rin asked, turning to face Bon, "Did you two get chewed out in the debriefing for something?"

"I'll tell you about it later." Ron promised him before Bon could answer, "Anyway, I didn't think you would be so happy-go-lucky about it, considering you got your meister taken away." Ron said to Suguro.

"Ha! Yeah right. He didn't take away my meister, he just told me I had to retake the written Dragoon examination."

"And isn't that kind of a big deal?" Ron said, raising an eyebrow.

"No. I passed it again this morning."

Ron was a little taken aback by this, but Rin just rolled his eyes. "Typical Bon." He said.

The short little first year Bon had been talking to jumped in front of Ron and Rin, grinning up at them, "Hey, you two are half-bloods, right?"

Ron and Rin just looked at each other. "Uhh..." Ron began to say.

"That's so cool!" The first year boomed before either of them could formulate an answer, "I bet you two are total _bad-asses_!"

Upon hearing this, Rin puffed out his chest and held his chin up in the air. "Yeah, it's pretty sweet." He boasted. "We're super strong, have special powers, and..."

"-should be getting to class." Ron inserted before Rin could continue his rant.

The first year was totally ignoring Ron now and instead just glowed with envy up at Rin. Ron thought for sure that Rin would start sparkling any minute now. "That's awesome!" The first year cried loudly, "I've got one-twenty-forth of something in me, but I don't have any special powers, I can just see the damn things. The demons, that is." He deflated, now looking at his shoes. "I'm not even gonna have to get registered." Now that last bit peaked Ron's interest. What had the first year meant by 'registered?' Registered with what? But before Ron could ask, the bell rang. "Okay, see you guys later." The first year said as he ran off.

"Hey, wait!" Ron called after him, but it was too late.

"Come on, Ron, we've got to get to class." Rin said.

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Oh right, you're so interested in getting to class now that you're no longer being ogled like some kind of idol."

Rin grinned and shrugged. "What can I say? I've got to be patient for my fans."

Ron just shook his head before they went along to class. The first year student had left Ron's head entirely now, and he became focused on what he was going to do about this stomach problem, which seemed to be getting worse by the minute.

…

As soon as he walked into the class after Rin, Ron thought that he was going to choke. The smell of distrust had grown to be claustrophobic and stale. It wasn't that it was _worse, _rather, it was like his reaction to it was worse. Being in the presence of all these _assholes_ that couldn't turn their backs on the people around them for half a second seemed to be killing him.

"Are you alright, Ron?" Rin asked as they sat down at one of the tables in the lecture hall, "You look kind of pale."

"I'm fine." Ron mumbled, carefully sitting down while his organs churned. Rin didn't look too impressed by his performance, but quickly turned his attention toward the front, where Yukio and the other teachers were waiting to begin the lecture. The fact that Rin was actively not trusting him while he sat next to him made his stomach problem even worse. Ron stared blankly at the table before him and focused all of his will power on containing his insides.

"Hello everyone," Yukio announced from the podium at the front of the room, gaining all of the students attention, "Today, me and my fellow teachers will be giving you a seminar on the importance of teamwork when exorcising high-level demons, as well as demonstrating and explaining some life-saving techniques that can be used in the field. Assisting us with this today, is our director, most of you _should _know him as John Faust..." Yukio motioned toward the door, where Mephisto was suddenly standing.

As all of the student's heads turned toward the director, one by one, thick waves of distrust spread throughout the room. For Ron, it was like being suffocated and repeatedly punched in the stomach at the same time. With every step Mephisto took toward the podium, ripples of fear emitted from all the students in the class like water from pebbles, slapping Ron in the face with each step. "Good afternoon, students!" Mephisto greeted them as he reached the podium. Ron felt his skin go numb. _What the fuck is happening to me? _He thought, panic beginning to rise in his system.

"Ron, are you alright?" Rin asked, putting his hand on Ron's shoulder. But Ron couldn't feel it, nor could he hear the words coming out of Rin's mouth, "You look seriously pale, man."

"Today..." Mephisto continued, "we are here to discuss team-tactics and strategies to be used when fighting high-level demons. I have been hoping to hold this seminar for some time, the wake of past recent experiences, which most of you probably know of, involving the Earth King, Amaimon..."

And that was it, simply at the mention of that name, one huge tidal wave of distrust washed over Ron from everyone in the room. Darkness encroached in on him from the corners of his vision. He lost his balance, and tumbled out of his chair onto the hard wood floor with a crash.

**…**

** Cliffhanger! Thanks for reading. If you can guess where I got the title of this story from, you get a cookie.**

**And many, many thanks to TheDanaDobre for proof reading my drivel and making it readable, and I hope the story is more enjoyable now.**


	13. The American Devil is High as Fck

**Hello, readers! Just got a short chapter for you today. I found this one to be a little hard to write, I think I'm loosing my grip on this story and the characters. Might have to re-watch a few of the Blue Exorcist episodes. Or maybe I'm just loosing steam for this story. What ever the case may be, I have at least one chapter of this left in me, so look out for that in the next several weeks.**

** On with it!**

...

Mephisto stopped talking mid-word as Ron fell to the ground.

"Shit, Ron!" Rin said, standing up and rushing to his fallen friend's side.

Then Yukio sprang from his spot in line with the other teachers, behind Mephisto, and ran to where Ron was laying belly-up on the floor. Yukio knelt at Ron's side. "What happened?" Yukio demanded as he checked Ron's pulse.

"I don't know." Rin said as he knelt down on Ron's other side. "He's been kind of slow all day. Whenever I questioned him about it he always brushed me off."

"Hmm. Well, he's got a pulse, and he's breathing, but it's pretty shallow." Yukio said.

Then Suguro came up behind Yukio. "God, he's white as a ghost." He said. It was true, Ron's complexion had turned deathly white, and deep, black circles where forming under his eyes. Within seconds, the rest of the class was huddled in a tight circle around their unconscious friend on the floor.

All of the teachers, on the other hand, were simply standing behind the director in shock, to confused about what was going on to make a move. Mephisto's own mood and facial expression could be summed up as somewhere between bored and annoyed. "Well," The director said. "it appears we have a student down, would _any _of the teachers, besides Okumura, care to assist?" At the word of the director, the teachers sprang into action, quickly hustling over to the crowd of students surrounding Ron.

"Let's get him onto a table." One of the teachers suggested.

"Good idea." Yukio said. "Rin, grab his feat." Yukio said, as he stepped behind Ron's head and hooked his hand's under Ron's armpits.

The Okumura brothers lifted their friend up and onto the table that Ron and Rin had been sitting at. Then, one teacher, a female doctor, muscled her way through the small crowd toward Ron. "Let me have a look." She said, as she bent over Ron's motionless form. She gave him a once-over, and then picked up one of his pale hands, feeling how cold his skin was, then she took index finger and carefully opened one of Ron's eyelids, seeing the pupil was very dilated. "I've seen this a couple times before." She said. "It looks like the beginning stages a fear-demon's Tempaint."

"But that doesn't make any sense." Yukio said. "Ron is half fear demon, he's not _possessed_ by one, so why would he get a fear-demon's Tempaint?"

"That's a very good question." Mephisto said. All heads turned toward the director, who was standing on the table behind them so that he could look over the crowd at the fallen student. "And I believe I can offer an explanation." He jumped down from his perch on top of the table, somehow managing to land softly and silently on the floor. The crowd parted as he approached the student on the table, making room for him to get through. "Ah yes." He said, looking over Ron. "A fear-demon's Tempaint is strange in that it is not a wound inflicted instantaneously upon exposure. Rather, it is a illness comically known as a 'sugar high.' You see, a fear demon can only have a host for so long before the host's body starts to reject the intake of fear, as a result, fear can literally manifest and build up in the host's stomach, instead of circulating out through the respiratory system like it would normally. Considering Ron is half fear demon, he has some natural immunity to it, but if he was exposed to a highly concentrated dose of one _particular_ _kind_ of fear over a long period of time, then he would surely succumb to it. The good news is that, if he manages to survive, he will probably have built up an impenetrable immunity to it." he said.

Rin growled "What do you mean 'if he survives'?" He yelled at Mephisto.

"I mean exactly what I said. Fear, if highly concentrated enough to physically manifest itself as a solid compound, as it has in his stomach, is highly toxic. If he doesn't regurgitate it all, he could go into irreversible comatose." Mephisto said.

The entire group of students gasped. Yukio grabbed Ron by the shirt collar and began to shake him violently. "Come on, wake up goddammit!" Yukio yelled in his face. "Your not going on me now!" Yukio said, slapping Ron across the face. "Here, roll him over onto his stomach." Yukio said. Bon and Rin went over to the side of Ron opposite Ron, and flipped him over, so he was now laying on his stomach with his head hanging over the edge of the table. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but that should actually make it easier for him to... _vomit._" Yukio said.

"Yeah, if he can wake up." Izumo said, from the edge of the crowd.

"Here," Shemie said, pushing through the other students and teachers until she was right next to Ron's head. "... This plant is very noxious when up close, he may wake up upon smelling it." She said, holding Nee, who had a long, thin, pointy leaf protruding from his stomach.

"That's a good idea." Yukio said. "They put ammonia tablets in first aid kits for the same reason, if it is strong enough to totally overload his senses, it may bring him out of unconsciousness."

As Shemie approached with the plant, Yukio's nose wrinkled at the awful bitter smell it produced, it was totally overwhelming. He looked at Rin to see him holding his nose too, but everyone else seemed to be fine. "God! What is that?" Rin said, tightly pinching his nostrils.

"Don't be such a baby." Bon said. "I can't even smell it."

"That's a good thing." Mephisto said. All heads turned to look at the director, who suddenly had two large, bright pink plugs shoved up his nostrils. "This scent produced by that wretched plant only affects those of us with demon blood in our veins. Its actually so overwhelming to us that they have begun harvesting it and putting it in Holy water grenades."

"God if that smell doesn't wake him up, nothing will." Rin said.

Shemie pecked the leaf off of Knee's stomach and brought it down under Ron's noes, wafting it back and forth to make sure he got a good whiff. A few seconds past, but nothing happened. Yukio sighed. "Well, it looks like that was..." Then, all of sudden, Ron's eyes shot open, he quickly lifted his head, looking around at all the people around him who were staring at him. Then, without a word, he jumped up, and launched himself all the way over the the crowd and hit the ground running toward the front of the room. He slid home to the waist paper basket that was next to the podium at the front of the room. He scrambled up to his knees and then buried his entire face into the little trash can, and then it began.

Yukio, Rin, and the rest of the cram school students ran to Ron's side as he hurled into the trash can. The squishy-squashy noise that came from whatever Ron was throwing up was enough to make the entire class a little nauseous.

"God." Rin said. "This is gross."

"Agreed." Bon said. "Why on Earth do they call this a 'Sugar High'?" He asked.

"There is indeed a very good explanation for that, too." Mephisto said as he came up behind the crowd of students. Once again, all heads, excluding Ron's of course, turned toward the director. "Care for me to elaborate?" He asked, and a consensus of nods fallowed. "Fear, as it happens, naturally produces an odor. Being able to smell it is not unique to Fear-Demons, its just that the rest of us cannot detect it unless it is very highly concentrated, like the compound that young master Ferus is in the process of regurgitating, and each kind of fear produces a slightly different odor. Fear-Demons have a natural catalog in there brain that allows them to swiftly identify which kind of fear they are smelling, for everyone else, it takes a trained nose. But in general, fear smells sweet, like candy, or sugar. Thus the first part of the term 'Sugar High'."

"And what about the second part. What does 'High' mean?" Konekomaru asked.

Just then, Ron collapsed back from his kneeling position over the waist paper basket, leaving him splade on the floor like a starfish. He opened his eyes, but they didn't seem to focus on anything, they just kind of stared off into the distance.

Shura was immediately kneeling at his side. "Ron! Ron can you hear me?" she said.

Ron gave a light grunt. "I..." He said.

"You what? What is it Ron?" Shura said.

"I..." A huge shit-eating grin spread across Ron's face. "I like colors." He said, staring up at the ceiling.

Shura's mouth just kind of hung open. "Huh?" She said.

Mephisto grunted to regain the attention of the students. "Yes, the second part of the term 'Sugar High' comes from the state that the illness leaves its victims in for a short period of time after it passes. A state which can be described as... thoroughly inebriated." He said.

"Gahh?" Rin said. "So what, he's like... drunk?"

"Drunk, high, burnt, blazed, gone, what ever your preferred slang term may be." Mephisto said.

"The ceiling is pretty today." Ron said.

"Wow, he's really gone isn't he?" Shima said, kneeling down and waving his hand in front of Ron's unresponsive face. Shima laughed. "We could have some fun with him like this, anybody got a permanent marker?"

As the last words were leaving his mouth, Shura planted her foot right into Shima's chest, making the boy fly backwards and land hard on his ass. "I think not." She said.

"Yeah, okay, What ever you say, teach!" Shura said, holding his hands in submission.

Izumo and Bon went over to investigate the waist paper basket, bonking heads as they both bent over to get a better look. "Watch it, eyebrows!" Bon said.

"Speak for yourself, Neapolitan!" Izumo retorted back.

The two of them once again bent over the little trash can, being slightly more careful this time. What they observed was a thick white paste the color of milk. "God that's gross." Bon said.

Izumo sniffed at it. "Wow, it really does smell like candy." Just then, a big air bubble rose to the surface of the gunk and popped, sending particles of the stuff flying into the air. Izumo screamed. "Did any of it get on me? Get it off! Get it off!" She said, flailing around. Bon, meanwhile, was rolling on the floor laughing his ass off.

Mephisto calmly walked past the two hysterical children and picked up the waist paper basket. "I'll be taking this, have to dispose of it quickly, it is toxic waist after all." He said, holding it under arm. Mephisto walked briskly to the door of the lecture hall, before turning to face the students again. "Your unfortunate classmate should have built up an immunity to this now, so you can all go on not trusting each other with out fearing for his health." He said, before walking out of the room entirely.

"Huh? Wait!" Yukio said. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Yukio ran to the door and out into the hall, but the director had, in his usual fashion, disappeared with out a trace. "Goddammit." Yukio muttered under his breath. He turned around, and walked back into the class room. "Alright." He shouted, getting the attention of the students. "No more standing around, lets get him to the infirmary before he hurts himself."

…

Back in his office, Mephisto sat the little trash can down on his desk, and took a seat in his chair, across from his little brother, who was sucking on a lollipop and staring at his big brother with great interest.

"Why do you want to save that stuff, brother?" The earth king asked.

"Well, I couldn't let someone else get their hands on it." Mephisto said, then he reached into the waist paper basket and scooped up some of the bubbling white paste with his gloved hand. Then, to the incredible surprise of his little brother, the demon took it and smeared it on his face, making sure to rub extra good around his eyes and on his forehead. "After all, it makes the most excellent anti-wrinkle cream."

The Earth King's eyes were wide open, and his jaw dropped, letting his lollipop dangle out of his mouth. He stared at his brother, his eyelid twitching. "That... Is disgusting."

…

**Well, there you have it. Not my best work by any stretch of the imagination, but oh well.**

** Thanks for reading.**


	14. The American Devil Tells A Story

It had been about a week since the incident in the lecture hall. The few days fallowing it had been quiet. Like literally _quiet. _People didn't seem to be speaking, not to him, not each other, not to _anybody. _They conversed only when it was mandatory and then quickly went back to residing within themselves. It was like they all assumed there was not point in communicating if they all already knew what what the people around them were thinking.

Ron sat at his desk, looking down at a large envelope from the mail that he assumed Yukio had dropped off while he was still asleep. He picked it up, noticing first the great many different stamps that were stuck to the front of it, either somebody didn't know how postage worked or this had come from a long ass way away. Upon closer examination of the return address, he confirmed the latter. He was surprised to see that it had come from the address of his former friend in the states, Tony Franks, but with Tony in jail, who would at that address would be interested in sending Ron anything?

"Well, only one way to find out." Ron said to himself.

He opened the envelope and dumped the contents onto his desk. Said contents was a single CD case with a post-it note stuck to the front. He picked up the case, and brought it close to his face so he could see the tiny writing on the post-it.

It read:

_Dear Ron, I went to see Tony today. He is doing better, he tells me that he has made friends (but considering his situation I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing) and apparently he is a pretty good hand at poker now. I mentioned that you had got his letters and that you were concerned for him, although you are currently unable to write him back. He was very happy to hear that and instructed me to send you this CD. Something about the 'good-old-days.' Any way, enjoy!_

_-Mrs. Laura Franks._

"Hmm." Ron grunted. He peeled the post-it note off the case to reveal the CD through the clear plastic. The design on it was a hand-doodled depiction of a steering wheel drawn in pen, and around the edge it read _Mixer's Mixed Mixes. _Ron smiled to himself. "Huh, so this is were this went." Then his heart dropped, as he realized that he didn't have anywhere to play the CD. That moment of sadness made him think of how disconnected he had beento his old life as of late. Seeing that CD brought it all back though. Then a light bulb went off in Ron's head. "I think it's time to go see the director." He said with a smirk, standing up and shoving the CD in his pocket.

…

Mephisto very rarely used the door to his office. Mostly he would do that fun little trick where he would snap his fingers and evaporate into thin air, and then he would simply _appear _in his office. The other part of the time he would use the doggy door, as it allowed him to enter largely unnoticed. But today, Mephisto decided to simply use the door. But, when he reached out with his white gloved hand to do just that, he found the knob, the lock, and the entire contraption quite literally smashed out of the door. Mephisto stared that his for just a minute, absorbing it. His brow furrowed and he lightly pushed the door with his extended index finger. It swung open easily and lightly to reveal none other than Ron Ferus behind Mephisto's desk, spinning in his chair.

Mephisto sighed. "Why am I not surprised?" He said.

"Probably because you think very little of me and have all along been expecting me to lash out like the emotional teenager I am." Ron said, going round and round in Mephisto's wheeled desk chair.

Mephisto laughed. "So you read minds now, too? Nifty trick, young master Ferus." he said. "So, are you going to explain why you are here, or are you going to make me ask?"

"I want a car." Ron said, stopping the spinning and looking Mephisto in the eyes. "Just to barrow, and just for a day."

Mephisto raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"To go for a drive, just a few miles off campus. Probably just cruise around the city a bit."

"Ha! Now, explain to me why in the world I would grant such a wish." Mephisto laughed.

"Let me ask you something, you were born into this right?" Ron asked.

That caught Mephisto off guard. "I... uhh." He said, stumbling his words. "Born into what?"

"This. All of this. This war, demons versus humans, the eternal struggle of light and darkness. Bla bla bla bla _bla. _This is your one true and absolute reality, correct?" Mephisto just stared back at Ron, blankly. "Well, Mister Pheles, it isn't mine. I have a relationship with a whole other reality. It's the one I lived in right up until I came here to this school, and honestly, I think I'm getting a little homesick."

Mephisto cleared his throat. "So your quitt..."

"This isn't a speech of resignation." Ron said, cutting off the director before he could finish his sentence. "I just need some time to gel with the real world." Again, Mephisto didn't respond, he just looked down, avoiding Ron's gaze. "Oh come on." Ron said. "Isn't this the part where your supposed to tell me that _this _is my reality now, and that I should get over it?" Ron said half-sarcastically.

Mephisto reached into his jacket pocket, and from within, he removed a single key. "Here." He said, tossing it to Ron, who caught it easily. "That key will take you to my private garage, I will call in and have them get something ready for you."

Ron, who had not been expecting things to go this well, was speechless. "I... thank you." He managed to mumble out. He quickly got up from Mephisto's chair, and rushed past the director, and out the door before Mephisto could change his mind.

After a couple of seconds, and the room was once again bathed in silence. Mephisto sighed. The director looked up into the rafters of the large room, to the shadowy figured crouched there. "You disobey me, you make a mess everywhere you go, and when someone _brakes _into my private space and smashes my door, you don't even have the common curtsey to do anything about it?"

"The Ferus boy intrigues me." the earth king said. Then, he jumped down from the rafters, landing on the floor face-to-face with his older brother. "I wanted to see what he would do."

"Hmpf." Mephisto said. He walked past his younger brother and sat down behind his desk, were Ron had been just seconds before. Amaimon plopped down in a smaller chair on the other side of the desk, and pulled a lolly pop out of his pocket. Mephisto stared out of the big glass window behind his desk, at the school grounds below, thinking. "Amaimon." He said after a minute or so. "May I ask you something?"

"Of course, brother." Amaimon said, sucking on the lollipop.

"Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to... have had a _human _childhood?" Mephisto asked, turning to face his brother again.

"No." the earth king said flatly. "But then again I'm not sure I fully understand the question. What defines a 'human childhood'?" He asked.

"Innocence." Mephisto said after a few moments. "Innocence."

…

The cram school students, along with Shura and Yukio stood in an awkward little group by the gate of the school grounds, muddling around in silence. Approximately twenty minutes beforehand, they had all received a text message requesting their presence at the gate, and surprisingly, they all showed up. But some of them were quickly getting annoyed.

"So, does anybody know whats going on?" Rin asked to no one in particular as he and his fellow students stood at the gate of the school grounds.

"Nope." Yukio responded. "I think we all got the same text message from Ron: 'Meet me at the gate in twenty minutes.'"

"Yeah, I think he probably just sent out a mass message to all of us." Konekomaru said.

"Well its been a good twenty-one minutes." Izumo said, irritated as always. "I'll give him another thirty seconds than I'm going back to my room."

_**SCREEEEECHHH! **_All of the students whipped around just in time to see a convertible whip around the corner and come to screeching halt in front of them. Behind the wheel was none other than Ron, sitting behind the wheel with his sunglasses over his eyes, looking rather pleased with himself.

"Ron!" Yukio shouted. "What the hell is this?" He asked, looking over the car. It was a bit of a strange vehicle, it was a newer convertible, but it looked as though it had been elongated to acomadate three rows of couch-style seats, like one might see in early American cars. A slick ride with enough room for 9 people.

"This," Ron said. "is a little treat from our great director, Mister Pheles."

"But..." Yukio started.

"Sick!" Rin said, vaulting over the car door and taking a seat next to Ron. "Wow, its nice leather too!" He said, feeling up the dashboard of the car. "Are we going for drive?" Rin said, turning to Ron with the same enthusiasm as a puppy who is about to get a treat.

"Of course, what else are we gonna do with it?" Ron said.

"I call shotgun!" Shima said, quickly getting in and sitting down next to Rin, opposite Ron.

Shura, who had until this point just been standing in light shock with her mouth slightly open, cleared her throat, summoning the attention of the others. "Excuse me, but do you even have your license, Ron?"

"Pffftt. Of course! Tony taught me how to drive. You remember him don't you, Shura? Tony Franks?"

"Wait," Yukio said, his going wide. "Are you saying that the kleptomaniac car thief taught you how to drive?"

Ron frowned at Yukio. "Yes, Yukio, the _kleptomaniac-car-thief_ taught me how to drive. Now, are you going to stand there looking stupid all day or are you going to get in the car?"

Yukio turned around, looking at Shura, begging her with his eyes to back him up and say no. But Shura just shrugged. "Sure, what the hell. It'll be more fun than grading papers." She said.

Yukio starred, mouth open in shock as she calmly walked past him and got into the car, sliding into the seat directly behind Ron. Yukio shook his head, gathering his thoughts. "So, Ron." he said, calmly as he could. "You do have a drivers lisence?"

"Yeah, in the states."

"Okay, and do you have a lot of hours behind the wheel?"

"I have enough." he said.

"And Director Faust gave you permission to take this little joyride?"

"Permission? Hell, he gave me the damn car." Ron said.

Yukio sighed. "Alright." He said. "I can't stop you, so I guess you can go. But..." Yukio then opened the door and slid into the middle seat behind his brother, next to Shura. "I'm coming to keep an eye on you."

"But of course." Ron said. "We can't have you missing out on the fun." He said. "Come on everyone, get in!"

One by one, the rest of the students piled into the car, with Izumo taking the remaining seat in the second row, next to Yukio, and Shemie, Bon, and Konekomaru taking the row in the back. Once everyone was buckled up and ready to go, Ron threw it into gear and sped through the gate, out onto the bridge leading away from the school grounds. It was a hot day, but a calm cross wind combined with the flow of air through the convertible's cabin kept its occupants nicely cool as they drove down the road. Ron had one hand on the steering wheel, his other one hung out the door, drumming a quiet beat on the metal of the car's body.

They were about a minute past the gate when Ron said. "Hey, Rin, open the glove compartment, there should be a CD in there, pop it in the player for me."

"Sure." Rin said, quickly retrieving the CD as instructed. But he waited to put it in the player, taking a minute to look over the hand-drawn cover art, and the letters on the front. "Is this music?" he asked.

"Yeah." Ron said. "It's a mixtape."

"Is it American music?" Rin asked.

"Yeah." Ron said.

Rin frowned at the disk. "But that means it'll be in English and I wont be able to understand it." He said, sounding rather disappointed.

"Who cares." Shima said. "I want to hear what American music sounds like, just put it in already."

"Trust me, you'll like it." Ron said.

Rin looked the CD over one more time before sliding it into the player. The CD whirred around, getting spun up. Then, a low beat thudded out through the speakers, fallowed closely buy the sound of a woman humming a tune, then a saxophone playing soft and low. One by one three or four more instruments faded into the song. Lyrics flooded over the instruments, Yukio couldn't understand them, but, strangely, they were still pleasant to listen to, they flowed, one word into the next, syllable by syllable, stringing and rhyming together. The tone was soft, and warming. Yukio realized that it sounded quite a bit like a haiku. Poetry.

"A friend of mine back home, guy named Mike Taylor, put this CD together." Ron let his hand hand out the open window of the convertible, drumming along with the beat on the out-side door of the car. "We called him Mixer, 'cause he made the best tapes any of us had ever heard, he'd sit at his old, crappy computer for hours editing the music, stringing it together, slowing down, speeding it up, and when he was done it was better than it was off the shelf at the record store. He wanted to be a producer when he grew and hell, he could of done it. He had an ear for notes, and music. Some times, he'd be listening to a song and say: 'Now listen to that, there's emotion in those words. Don't just listen to the music, close your eyes and let yourself _feel _it.'"

Yukio was a little perturbed. It wasn't like Ron to simply ramble on about something, he was usually quick to the point, explained things simply. The car was going fast now, up to highway speed, pushing it a couple kilometers per hour over the speed limit as they sped across the bridge that connected True Cross to the outside world. "Ron... what exactly are we doing?" Yukio said.

Ron stopped drumming on the side of the car, and remained silent for the moments fallowing the question. "We are... remembering." He said finally. "Well, at least I'm remembering, you're all simply along for the ride."

"And what exactly are we remembering?" Yukio asked.

Ron sighed, totally aware that all eyes were on him at this moment. "Back in the states, I really only had three real friends." he said. "Mixer was one of them, then there was Tony Franks, and then there was Mixer's brother, Malcolm. Now Malcolm and Mixer were identical twins, right. Totally impossible to tell them apart except was when they talked. Malcolm never shut the fuck up, he talked constantly, said what ever the hell happened to be in his head to whoever was listening. Mixer on the other hand, talked almost never, and he was never really good at it. When he really wanted to communicate something, he'd put together some songs and make a mix for you. It was just the only way he knew how to interact with people."

"That sounds inconvenient." Bon said.

Ron laughed. "What the little guy lacked in quantity he made up in quality. You'd listen to one of his mixes and you could know exactly what he was thinking, feel exactly what he was feeling. You could have a conversation with him, one song at a time." Ron paused for a moment, waiting for his audience to dwell on that. "It was kind of unfortunate how I met him, though. I was walking to class at my school, and I round a corner and here are these four guys just pounding on him, absolutely beating the shit out of him. So I threw a couple punches, made 'em back off. I helped him up and he introduced me to his brother, who thanked me by giving an once of weed." Ron chuckled a little. "Malcolm was real character."

Izumo was getting impatient, waiting for some type of point to be made. "Why are you telling us this?" She snapped.

Ron didn't react to it, he didn't get angry, he just kind of looked at the road, and then he brought his finger to his lips and said. "Shhhhh." He said softly, the calming tone escaping his lips at a nearly inaudible volume. "Now Franks..." Ron began again after a few seconds. "...I met Franks because he damn near killed me with his car. I was on my bike and he came around a blind corner like a bat out of hell. He stomped on the brake but he still hit me going probably ten miles per hour." Ron started to really crack up. "I flew like twenty feet through the air and hit the tarmac like a pancake." he managed to get out in between chuckles, recalling this incident as a very comical one for some reason. "I was fine though." Ron said when he had gotten it all out of his system. "Franks might have been a bit of klepto, but, I swear to god you'd never meet a softer guy in your life. He was more traumatized by the whole incident than I was! He drove me home and then everyday afterward for the like the next month he came over to check up on me, make sure I hadn't spontaneously died. You all should have seen Shura when he brought me home and explained everything to her. If it is physically possible to rip someone's head from their shoulders with your bare hands, than she could have done it in that moment."

Shura laughed. "Yeah, I remember that guy. He was nice, you're right though, total softy. You could have chopped him up into five pieces and sold them pillows." She said, holding her hands behind her neck, letting wind flow over her, messing with here hair.

"Thank you for that image, Mis Kirigakure." Yukio said.

"What? It's the truth!" Shura retorted back. The whole car went up in fits of laughter and chuckles from the students.

"Here..." Ron said, taking one hand off the steering wheel to reach into his pocket. He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open in his lap, his eyes darting between his wallet and road. "Found it." he said, holding up a small, folded piece of paper. "Pass this around." Ron said, handing it to Rin. "That's a picture of the four of us in my apartment, posing with my dad's old guns."

Rin unfolded it, exposing the grainy picture. "So this is what Americans look like." he said.

The couch was tattered and stained, it sat in a poorly lit room where sunlight beamed through an open window, making the abundant dust particles visible. On the couch sat four boys. On the left, the two twins sat. They seemed to innocent almost, both of them short with freckles and long, curly red hair. They each held a shot gun, crossing the barrles over their heads. On the far sat a tall, lanky boy with a buzz cut, he wore a shit-eating grin and brandished a Colt Commando AR, that he obviously did not know how to hold correctly. Then in the middle sat Ron. He had a half-smile on, and had a fedora pulled down over his eyes. In both hands he brandished a menacing looking pistol. The inhabitants of the picture made it almost visually shocking. It was just such a strange odd-ball group of people.

"When was this taken?" Yukio said, after he had passed.

"On my birthday, a couple months after Shura left."

"So who took it?" Rin said.

Ron snorted a laugh. "It was Tony's crazy girlfriend. She was a literal pyromaniac, there was nothing she liked more than to watch something go up in flames. She marked the occasion by taking a whole bottle of liter fluid and a match to that damn couch. We had to push the thing out the window and onto the fire escape before the whole building went up!"

Izumo's brow furrowed. "I don't get it. Why would you associate with these types of people? They seem so messed up."

Rin looked over to see Ron's reaction to this comment. In that moment, Rin, and only Rin, saw a grin spread across Ron's face. It was like he was teacher smiling at a student who had just a got a really difficult question right. "So anyway, Tony's uncle owned a auto shop in town. His specialty was custom body work, he could take any old beater and make it look and sound like a real super car. And he always had a car in the shop, so one weekends, the four of us would barrow whatever car he had just finished and take it for a test drive. Tony's uncle loved it, thought it was free advertising..."

"You haven't answered my question." Izumo injected, becoming irritated with being ignored.

Ron looked into the rear view, right at Izumo. "What do you think I'm doing?" Ron said. Izumo didn't respond. "So..." Ron said after several seconds. "For these weekend excursions, we'd all put on the best clothes we owned. For Tony, it was a cheesy Christmas tie and a this wrinkled old dress shirt that was literally stained with blood all around the collar, we don't know how it got that way and none of us ever asked. Malcolm and Mixer had one suit between them, one of 'em would always wear the top and the other would always wear the bottom, and they'd take turns. Now me, I had a full on tuxedo that had belonged to my father. It was two sizes to big and the dress shoes that it came with had brown splotches on them from something or other. Then we would take this fake super car and go to the richest suburbs we could find and spend the whole day just cruising around, pretending we were rich, waving to people as they opened their personal electric gates, got into their massive SUV's and scolded their garden workers. And hell, sometimes they'd wave back."

"Sounds kind of fun!" Shima said, letting his arm hand out the open the window of the convertible, taking in the sun and the expierence.

"It was fun." Ron said. "But it was about more than that. It was about getting _somewhere else, _even if just for a few hours. Escapism. It was four poor kids who knew full well that their entire existence may as well have come to end after we graduated, for all we were gonna do with our adult lives. It was how we forgot about that. And we all had our own jobs to contribute to this fantasy. Tony, of course, supplied the car and was the driver. Mixer brought the music, he'd have new mix with him every weekend. Malcolm always bought some weed and rolled a couple joints for us to pass around. And as for me... I sat shotgun and worked the stereo."

Yukio listened carefully. This monologue worried , always the intellectual, had paid extra close attention to the words. It troubled him how much emphasis was put on the past tense.

Shura smirked. "Don't be so modest. Each one of those kids was a total basket case, you kept them all in line."

Ron smiled. "I guess that's how it was, in a way."

Yukio's eyes got a little bit wider, something had clicked in his head. "What happened to that?" He said.

Rin took on a puzzled look and turned around to face his brother. "What do you mean, Yukio?" He said.

Before Yukio could clarify to his brother, Ron spoke up. "This happened, what else?" he said.

Shemie, who had been stone silent for the entire trip finally opened her mouth. "What do you mean, 'this happened?'" she said.

Ron didn't answer. He reached down into his pocket, and pulled out a single, long cigarette and a liter. He placed it in his mouth without a word, and lit it.

"I didn't know you smoked." Bon said.

"No fantasy lasts forever." Ron said. "That's the point, it's a dream, at some point you have to wake up and realize just how much everything really sucks. Those weekend trips were fun, but they got hard at the end of the day when we would start heading back to _our _part of town, and the fantasy unraveled. It was all I could do to just make sure Tony took the car back to his uncle's shop, and to keep Malcolm from being nose-deep in angel's dust all the time." He breathed out the side of the window, a stream of nicotine smoke trailing out behind the car.

_There he goes again with the American slang. _Yukio thought. It wasn't like Ron to be so obscure, to make you decipher what he said, he usually made a point of doing the exact opposite. It was like he was half telling this story for the benefit of himself.

"But then..." Ron began again. "I found something that wasn't a fantasy; something that wasn't going to simply crumble before my eyes at the end of the day like old painting. My school told us over the PA system one day about this Japanese language test you could take at the end of the semester, to qualify for a special grant. If you studied for it, took it, and scored in the top five, you got to go to _Japan. _It was the single greatest thing I had ever heard in my life. It was a sure chance to get the fuck out of dodge, even if just for a half a year or so. And I _knew _I could do it, I already spoke the language half decently, hell it was the only thing we spoke around the apartment when me and Shura lived together. So I buckled down and studied for it; forgot about _everything_ else."

"Even those weekend trips?" Rin asked.

"Mhm." Ron said, taking another drag from the cigarette. "I stopped seeing those guys almost all together. I was so obsessed with leaving that I didn't have any more room in my life for what I would be leaving."

"So you abandoned them." Bon said. "So what, I'm sorry but I have to kind of agree with Izumo here, it sounds like it was the right path for you."

"For me?" Ron said. "See that's what I'm getting at. Sure, it might have been good for _me. _But Tony, Mixer, Malcolm. Not so much."

"What happened to them?" Konekomaru said.

Ron didn't talk right away. He just took a couple more long drags on the cigarette. They were drving through town now. Mid evening traffic bustled around them, everybody had somewhere to go, except them. The slanted rays of sun came in between the buildings, bouncing off one window pain and then crossing the street to another, zigzagging their way to the ground.

"Without me around..." Ron started to say. "There wasn't really anyone to keep those guys out of trouble. Really, there wasn't anyone to keep Malcolm out of the drugs. His mom found him face down in his closet, covered almost head to toe in coke. The ambulance got there in time to save his life, but he was already in a coma. He was in a hospital bed for a month before he just gave up, slipped right from simply being asleep to not being there at all. It was devastating for his mother, and especially for Mixer, who suddenly didn't have anyone to talk to, with me being locked in my apartment studying all the time. But more than that, Malcolm didn't have health insurance, nobody in the family did. Talk about being drowned in an ocean of debt. Mixer had to _pay _for the death of his brother, lost all of his CD's, all of his mixing equipment, his computer, and then finally, the apartment. Just him and his mom out on the street. He didn't have the nerve to tell me, so I just kept going on, to obsessed with the test to notice that he was suddenly wearing the exact same tattered rags to school everyday. I got no idea where he is now. Around this same time, Tony had a nervous brake down. The only way I can process it is that he must have saw that everyone who gave a shit about him was leaving him in one way or another and he wanted to get out to. He held up a gas station clerk, took all the money out the register and then stole the managers car. Didn't even make it out of town before he got picked up. It was his third strike, and he went straight to the state pen, didn't even get an appeal."

"You can't really blame yourself for all of that, can you?" Shemie said, as she silently teared up.

Ron laughed. Downright laughed. The whole car was startled by it. "You still aren't seeing it, it isn't about whether or not I blame myself for anything. Do you get it now?" Ron's question was just fallowed by silence. "I found not one, but _three _people who were willing to have my back, through everything that might come across us. Damn what might be wrong with them, damn what ever little anal-retentive thing about them I didn't like. But you know what? I let them go, I decided they weren't worth my time for some dumb reason or another, and they all suffered for it." Ron's hands clenched hard around the steering wheel, locked at the ten and two. If Rin or Shima had looked over to Ron at that moment, they would have seen a single tear dribble down his cheek. "When you find a group of people who will watch your back, you hang on to that, no matter what. Nothing is more important. I've been fortunate enough to find two groups of people in my life like that, but I, with utmost certainty, guaranty that I will be the only one in this car right now who is that lucky."

The driver of the car kept his eyes on the road while the rest of it's occupants promptly turned their attention to their feet. Words were searched for, none were found. Until...

"What do you want me to say?" Yukio said, speaking for them all.

"I don't want you to say anything." Ron said. "I just want you to understand."

Yukio looked to his right, staring off into the distance. "And what if I don't?" He said. Rin remained silent.

"Don't worry." Ron said. "You've got time."

Then Shura spoke up. "So what happens now?"

"Pfff. I don't know." Ron said. "The rest of this CD, the rest of this week, the rest of this week. The rest of our lives, and whatever tomorrow brings. Does it really matter? We live through countless moments of pain in our lives to get to the moments of happiness. If you truly understand what I have just told you, I promise you'll see more of the happy ones."

Yukio smirked. "I'll hold you to that."

"I hope you will." Ron said. "But for now, just sit back, relax, and listen to what my man Mixer has to say."

Rin smiled. "I like that idea." he said, turning up the volume on the stereo.

The music flowed from the speakers, filling the car. Ron through his cigar out the side of the car, and pointed it west, toward the setting sun.

…

**And there you have it. Now that school has started, it's making it harder for me to work on this fic, thus the huge time gap between the last chapter and this one. For this I apologize. I really loved working on this story and I had a great deal more planned for it, as you probably know if you paid any attention to my transparent foreshadowing. But for the time being, I am shelving it and labeling it as "complete." I think that I accomplished what I set out to accomplish with this story; to teach the characters something. I feel strangely satisfied with this ending, no matter how confusing it may be to my readers out there, I hope that it was at least enjoyable.**

** At some UNKOWN point in time, this chapter will be edited and re-uploaded with spelling and grammatical corrections, as well as added exposition and environmental detail (considering that in it's current state it's basically just a very long dialogue). I wanted to uploaded it as is because I knew that if I didn't, I probably never would. If my god awful grammar and spelling offends you so much, go right ahead and edit it for me. **

** For anyone who is interested in using content from this story; I give anyone who wishes to full license to use my OC's, use "fear demons" and my description of them, and/or simply continue this story outright on their own, in fact, I encourage it. Just let me know when you post it so that I may read it :)**

** And to my readers, thanks to everyone who kept up with this story, reviewed it, fallowed it, and favorited it, it means a lot to me. And you never know, maybe I'll pick this up again once I don't have to worry about pre-calc anymore :P Till then, just pray that we get another season of Blue Exorcist!**

** As a final note, my writing takes a great deal of emotional inspiration from the music that I listen to, and I sometimes even choreograph scenes to music in my head. If someone requests it, I will post the playlist that I used to write this fic, as well as a list of tracks that I imagined being on Mixer's Mixed Mixes.**

** Carry on.**

** -Wahs.**


	15. The American Devil's Playlist

**So, someone asked for it, so here it is. This is several different lists of tracks that I used to write this story, presented in several different forms.**

**Something that always comes to mind when I write is how my characters might react emotionally to music, which might sound kind of weird, honestly. It probably has something to do with the way that music impacts me emotionally. I like to listen to music that I think would give my characters the most interesting reaction possible based on the context of the scene. So that's kind of how I came up with the fallowing, which is a list of the tracks that I imagine would be on the CD 'Mixers Mixed Mixes' from the last chapter. I also used a number of these songs to write the chapter, so enjoy...**

**Mixer's Mixed Mixes:**

1. Common- _The Sixth Sense_

2. Ludacris- _Growing Pains_

__3. Brother Ali- _Us_

4. Globetroddas- _Love_

5. Archival- _Sadtimes_

6. Common Market- _Refresh_

7. Brother Ali- _Chain Link_

8. Surreal and the Sound Providers- _Push On_

9. The Grouch- _Breath_

10. Soulcrate Music- _Sleep Awake_

11. Common Market- _Back Home (The Return)_

12. Common- _Resurrection _

13. AD & Squashy Nice- _Lifetime Season_

14. Brother Ali- _Daylight_

15. C.L. Smooth & Pete Rock -_They Reminisce Over You_

16. Dilated Peoples- _Worst Come To Worst_

17. Language Arts Crew- _Lazy Days In California_

18. Krayzie Bone-_Sometimes I Cry_

19. Looptroop Rockers- _Last Song_

…

**So now, there are some songs that I listened to in general while writing this, and there are some songs that are specific to certain chapters, and there are some chapters that have no specific songs associated with them (at least not as far as I can remember).**

**General Playlist:**

Yuya Matsushita- _Trust Me_

Danger Mouse & Jemini- _The Only One_

Heavy Young Heathens- _Sha la la la La_

Eminem- _Crack A bottle_

_ -I'm Back_

_ -I'm Shady_

_ -The Real Slim Shady_

_ -Role Model_

Cunninlynguists- _Seasons_

Common Market- _Re-Fresh_

Feeder- _Renegades_

**Chapter 4 Specific:**

Classified- _Get Out The Way_

_ -Quit While You're Ahead_

Eminem- _The Real Slim Shady_

**Chapter 5 Specific:**

Eminem- _Won't Back Down_

**Chapter 6 Specific:**

Common Market- _Re-Fresh_

**Chapter 7 Specific:**

Atmosphere- _Sunshine_

**Chapter 10 Specific:**

Priestess-_Lay Down_

**And that's as much as I can remember right now, and I have already stated all the songs I used to write chapter 14, so no need to be redundant. There are probably a lot more than this that I am just forgetting, and I will edit this page with updates when they come to my mind.**

** …**

** A while ago I asked whether or not anybody could guess where I got the name for this story from, and I never did end up answering this question, so I may as well just do it now and also give you some background on how I started this story. **

** Anyway, I finished watching Blue Exorcist last year right around the same time I finished reading Hunter S. Thompson's 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas', which, for all of you who don't know, is about a massive acid trip through Vegas, it involves copious amounts of drugs, some rape, and a whole slew of quasi-social commentary and illegal activities. It's kind of a fucked up book, but it's also the funniest book I've ever read in my life, and it was fresh in my head when I decided I wanted to write a FanFic for Blue Exorcist.**

** And so, this Fic was originally conceived as a pseudo-crossover between the two; a parody about a young American foreign exchange student who is a massive druggy and gun enthusiast, and becomes even more so when he finds out about the activities of the cram school students, then, havoc ensues. But I found that I didn't really like writing comedy unless it was just produced naturally through dialogue in the story (I also found out that I wasn't very good at it when I tried to force it.) Originally I wasn't even going to make Ron part demon, but as the story developed in my head I decided to go with a little bit more serious approach, try to teach the characters something. But, I thought that my original title; "Fear and Loathing at True Cross Academy" sounded pretty cool, so I kept it.**

…

**Thanks to everyone who enjoyed this story. I don't know if I will ever publish another chapter for it, but I know I will occasionally sit down at my computer and type a few lines of dialogue for it. I like this universe a lot, and after a long day, it's a nice place to escape into, and if anything remotely decent comes of my escapism I will for sure post it right up here.**

** Thanks again, and with deep regrets and fond memories, I bid thee farewell.**

** -Wahs.**


	16. The American Devil's Wonderful World

**Hi, all. This idea came to me while I was listening to music and debating with my friend about the legitimacy of things that are supposedly 'truly-divine' or 'truly-evil.' Not connected to the over-arching plot of this fanfic in anyway, but it was fun to write and I hope it is just as fun to read!**

**Songs that were listened to while writing this chapter:**

Rhymefest- _Bullet_

Rhymefest- _Devil's Pie_

D-sisive-_ Wonderful World._

Classified- _Fall From Paradise_

**^Its all rap music, pretty much all I listen to these days, but it's all in very good taste and I would highly encourage looking them up on youtube or something similar after you have finished reading the chapter. Enjoy!**

**Look for the Durarara! reference. **

_ ..._

"Hey Ron." Yukio said, standing in the doorway to his friend's dorm room.

Ron, who was laying back on his bunk reading, looked up from his scripture book at Yukio. "Yeah, whats up?" He said. After studying Yukio for a moment, Ron was a little taken aback, as Yukio seemed to be wearing... normal people clothes; a white t-shirt, a pair of black dockers, sneakers and normal school pack slung over his back. It was strange to see him outside of the uniform that identified him as a licensed Exorcist, at least at this time of day. Although he did have the spiked pendent hanging from his pocket.

"I need help with an exorcism." Yukio said, taking a step into the room.

Ron nodded. "Okay, you need a minute to get ready, or... something?" He said, looking over Yukio's attire again.

Yukio seemed to catch onto what Ron was eluding to. "Oh, no. This is pretty low-key, so I dug out my more casual clothing. You should do the same."

Ron shrugged. "No complaints here." He said, hopping out of his bunk. "So this is a little bit of an under-the-radar type of thing?"

"Yeah, something like that." Yukio said as they both stepped out into the hallway.

"You have your rig, and everything?" Ron said.

"Yeah, it's all in the pack." he said, pointing to the backpack over his shoulder with his thumb. "What about you?"

Ron just pulled up his baggy white T-shirt to reveal the H&K sitting nice and snug in it's holster on his belt, than he covered it back up with his shirt. "Never leave it behind. You taught me that." He said, nudging Yukio in the ribs, bringing back not the fondest of memories.

But Yukio laughed all the same. "Aww yes." He said. "It's hard to believe that you've been here almost four months now. Wasn't your trip here supposed to end a month ago? Shouldn't you have left here and taken your troubles with you, you filthy American?" Yukio said in good humor.

"Ha! As if Mephisto would ever let you be so lucky."

When they reached the end of the hall, Ron stopped suddenly. "Wait, shouldn't we take Rin along with us?" He said, grabbing Yukio lightly by the shoulder.

Yukio turned to Ron and looked a little disappointed. "He's still asleep."

Ron pulled out his phone and looked at the time. "It's one in the afternoon." He said.

Yukio nodded. "I know, it's sad, isn't it?" he said, rolling his eyes.

"You should go wake him up."

"I don't know if I could." Yukio shrugged.

"Well you should try." Ron said, a little bit more aggressively.

Yukio looked away from Ron. "I'm just not sure if it's such a good idea for him too..."

"Yukio..." Ron said, cutting him off.

Yukio looked back at him and they locked eyes for a couple seconds. "Oh alright, I'll go get him." Yukio said, giving in. Yukio started back down the hallway toward his and Rin's dorm room.

"You'll thank me." Ron shouted after him. "It's always good to have more people watching your back."

Yukio looked back him. "I hope your right." he said.

…

Ron, Yukio, and Rin boarded the train at the campus station and took off for this little job of Yukio's. Rin was pleasantly surprised by being able to wear more casual clothing out in public. So there was just the three them, sitting on the train, looking like normal teenagers; Yukio in his t-shirt and dockers, Ron in a baggy white shirt and jeans, and Rin with a graphic-T and jeans, as well as a long cardboard tube that Yukio had found for him to hide his sword in. Yep, they would have looked pretty normal if the clothes hadn't been so clean and untouched.

They were lucky enough to have the train car all to themselves. Rin and Yukio sat next to each other, Yukio sitting straight up in his perfect posture and studying a map that he held out in front of him. Rin on the other hand was slouched over the arm rest, propping his head up with his hand as he gazed across the train car and out the opposite window and impatiently tapped his foot. Ron sat opposite them, his back against the arm rest, one leg spread out across the seats in front of him, and the other on the floor. He quietly read a newspaper that somebody had left there.

"You read about this yet?" Ron asked suddenly, breaking the silence between them. He held the paper up for Rin and Yukio to see.

"No, what is it?" Rin said, sitting up. Yukio also lowered his map to get a look at what Ron was referring to, but didn't offer a comment.

"There's been more color gang killings in the Ikebukuro area, some of them pretty gruesome." He said, placing the article in his lap. "This gang war they have going on over there is really getting heated up."

"Hmm. I don't generally read those papers." Yukio said, returning his attention to the map. "Who wants to read about that kind of thing anyway." He said, more as a statement than a question.

Ron gazed off into space for a minute, thinking. "Do you ever think that we live in kind of a wonderful world?" He asked.

Rin gave him a funny look. "Weren't you the one who was just talking about a rise in gruesome gang killings?" He said.

"No, that's not what I meant." Ron said. He moved his head back and forth for a second, trying to think of a good way to explain it. "Not the world as a whole, I mean like our world, the one with demons, exorcists, enchanted swords, that whole deal."

"Aww." Yukio said through his map. "You mean that one where we have all almost been killed, where Rin and I's father is dead, and where we are constantly being targeted by the lord Satan himself? Yes, we live in a _terribly _wonderful world." Yukio said, sarcasm ringing in the air.

"Would you rather fight the forces of Satan, or a human being who simply has opposing opinions and ideals to you?" Ron said back. "Take it from an American, a world of absolutes is always the most convenient. Why do you think people from my country have such a hard time letting go of the idea that they're always in the right and everyone else is evil?" He said it very passively, it wasn't meant to be an attack. He sighed. "I don't know. It was just something I was thinking about." He said.

"Yeah!" Rin said, smiling like an idiot. "Silly humans and their silly problems!"

You could see a vain bulging in Yukio's forehead, but his neutral facial expression remained unchanged. He didn't speak. The train pulled to stop, halting rather suddenly. Almost on impulse, Rin stood, and took a step toward the door, but Yukio grabbed him by the arm before he got to far off. "Not here." Yukio said.

Rin turned around and studied his brother with a puzzling expression. "But Yukio, this is the second to last stop..." he said, trailing off.

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Why is that of such significance?" He asked, as the doors beeped and closed again, sealing off their escape.

"When we were growing up, we lived in a monastery that ran off little more than donations, and of course the occasional charge when a exorcism came through, but father mostly did those out of charity..." Yukio said as Rin retook his seat next to him.

"...which is probably why the old fart was stingy as hell." Rin said, interrupting his brother.

"Anyway," Yukio said, brushing off his brother's comment. "because the company car wasn't always available, our father instructed us from a young age on how to navigate the city using the various subway and rail lines. One of the first things he taught us was all of the stops that would drop us off in more... undesirable neighborhoods. The end of this line is one such stop."

"If that's so..." Ron said, sitting up straight in his seat and making eye contact with Yukio. "This is probably a good time for you to explain why you are dragging us out there."

Yukio sighed, and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Alright." he said. "I was contacted recently by someone who I had not heard from in a very long time. A friend from elementary school."

"Wow." Rin said, looking at his brother with wide eyes. "You had _friends_?"

"More like someone to confide in." Yukio said. "You see, I have always been able to see demons, from birth. When I was young and had little sense of secrets and a rather louse tongue, I often spoke openly about what I saw, and I was usually dismissed as wanting attention or simply being insane. But, there was one classmate I had, who, if nothing else, would sit and listen to what I was saying, without judging me. Whether or not he believed me or if he was simply entertained by the stories I told, I don't know, but he certainly played a part in my ability to complete school, and I owe him."

"You never told me about that." Rin said.

"I never had a reason to." Yukio said. "Until I got a call from him this morning."

Ron nodded, excepting Yukio's story. "So what's the gist?"

"Demon in the closet."

"Demon in the closet?"

"Yeah."

"Well that sounds a little cliché. Didn't he have any more information than that?"

Yukio shook his head. "Most people aren't exactly demonologists. They come to us describing what they saw, we research it, find a way to exorcise it, and then carry out the deed. Honestly, the best outcome is the one where we are able to do away with the demon without ever telling the civilians what they are actually dealing with. The business of exorcists is one that likes the shadows."

"Hmm." Ron said. "Do we have an angle?"

"Yeah, got any idea on how we might take this thing down?" Rin said.

"No." Yukio said. "There are many demons that thrive in dark, dank, sweaty places. This, my guess, is why you two refuse to clean your rooms or do your laundry on a regular basis."

Ron and Rin both frowned. "We do our laundry, sometimes." Ron grumbled, diverting his eyes.

"And I picked up all the underwear off my half of the floor." Rin mumbled to himself.

"You two are helpless." Yukio said, sighing. The train once again slowed, and then suddenly halted, as if to awake any sleeping passengers that might be on board. "Here we are." Yukio said, standing. Ron and Rin fallowed suit, filing out of the train car behind Yukio. The underground subway platform was empty except for the three of them, and eerily quiet. Graffiti covered all walls, and stray pieces of garbage from overflowing trash cans shifted and moved along the floor of the platform, pushed on by a cool breeze that entered from the stairway leading up to the surface.

"Wow." Rin said, looking around, mouth open. "It's kind of creepy."

"Yeah." Yukio said, wearing the same facial expression as his brother. "I think we should stay close together." And with that, he took a step behind his brother, like one might hide behind a shield.

"You've got to be kidding me." Ron said, shaking his head at the twins. "This reminds of the platform near in my neighborhood back in the states. You two are fearless exorcists, soldiers fighting the legions of hell, are you really afraid of few hobos and gangbangers?"

"Hobos?!" Rin said.

"Gang-bangers?!" Yukio followed suit.

"Christ." Ron said, facepalming. "You'll be fine, as along as you stop acting so square. Stand up straight, walk forward, and don't make eye contact with anyone. If this is anything like my neighborhood, the best thing you can do is to not act scared of anyone, don't confront anyone or start anything, but be indifferent. Pretend you're walking through the True-Cross campus." He said, heading toward the stairway, motioning for the twins to fallow him.

"Right." Yukio said, standing up straight and pressing out the wrinkles in this shirt. "No problem." He said, following quickly after Ron.

"Hey, wait up!" Rin said, chasing after them.

Once they had ascended the stairs and reached street level, they came to stop, looking around at the alien world around them. The exact details were different, but in it's essence, the place felt strangely familiar to Ron. "So, where to?" He asked, turning to Yukio.

"Umm..." Yukio retrieved the map from his pocket, unfolding it and taking a minute to orient himself. "It should be just up this way..." He said, pointing up the street directly in front of them, made up of several large apartment blocks.

"Well, lead the way." Ron said.

Yukio nodded, and started forward, still holding the map out in front of him. Rin and Ron walked next to him, observing their surroundings. It was quiet, save for an old man walking a dog on the opposite side of the street. The sidewalk was cracked in many places, little bits of grass sprouting up through the cement, and more graffiti covered the apartment blocks, along the ground level and all the way up the fire escapes.

Rin's tail shifted uneasily in his shirt. "Do you smell anything, Ron?" he asked.

Ron sniffed the air experimentally. "No, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to worry about."

Rin almost jumped out of his pants moments later as a police car came to a sudden halt next to the three of them. A single officer hopped out. "Hey, you three." He said, as they turned to him.

"Yes, what is it, officer?" Yukio said, putting the map away.

The policeman stepped onto the sidewalk, in front of the three students. "What are you three kids doing in this neighborhood?"

"Uhh..." Yukio said.

"We live a few blocks from here." Ron injected, cutting Yukio off. "We just got off the subway, coming from the public school."

"Really?" The officer said, giving Ron a quizzical look. "Hey, you don't look very Japanese..." he said.

"He's a foreign exchange student." Rin said, which technically wasn't a lie.

"Hmm. School should have ended several hours ago, what are you three doing just getting home now?"

"We severed detention." Ron said, without missing a beat.

"And you, the exchange student," The officer said, directing his attention to Ron. "which one of these boys are you living with while you're here?"

"Both of us." Yukio said. "We're brothers."

The officer nodded, taking a moment of silence to give each of the boy's a once over with his eyes. He sighed. "Alright, carry on then. Get home quickly, don't want your parents to worry." And with that, he turned, got back into his car, and drove off.

"What the hell was that all about?" Rin said, scratching his head.

"We're dressed to nicely." Ron said, turning to face him. "Our clothes are clean and relatively new, we probably do a look a little odd in this neighborhood."

"Why did you feel the need to lie to that police officer?" Yukio asked, giving Ron a hard look.

"It's a political thing." Ron said. "If he found out that we went to True-Cross, he would have insisted on escorting us out of the neighborhood, or at least back to the subway. If it's anything like it is back in the states, they probably can't afford to let rick kids from a prestigious boarding school get hurt or killed within their jurisdiction. It just looks bad."

Rin crossed his arms. "Sheesh. Thanks for putting my mind at ease." He said, nervously looking around.

"Come on, lets get this over with. The sooner we can get back to True-Cross the better."

"I agree." Ron said.

The three of them walking in silence for a minute or two, before Yukio came to a stop in front of one of the nondescript apartment blocks. "Here." Yukio said, staring up at the brown seemingly deserted building, with all of it's faded paint and broken windows.

"Seriously?" Rin said. "Doesn't look like anyone's been here in a while..."

"I've seen worse blocks." Ron said, examining the structure.

"Hmm." Yukio said. "Lets do this." he walked up the steps, closely fallowed by Ron and Rin. The outer door at the top was without a nob and swung open easily, revealing a well-bolted inner door and a panel with a list of apartment numbers and buttons.

"Do you know what his apartment number is?" Ron said, stepping up the panel.

"Uhh..." Yukio stammered for a second has he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of scratch paper. "It's... apartment number 612." he said, after taking a quick look at what he had written down.

Ron ran his finger over the lists of numbers, searching for it. "Ah, here we go." He said, pushing in the button next to 612. A speaker next to the panel buzzed three times, before the sound of someone picking up a phone could be heard on the other end.

First there was silence, then a large rush of static could be heard as someone on the other end breathed deeply in and out. "...Hello...?" The voice had a scratchiness to it that sounded like it could be attributed to smoking.

"Yukio Okumura and party." Ron said into the mic.

"Oh, oh yeah right. I'll buzz you guys up, just a sec..." The phone was hung up, and a small electrical buzz could be heard as the dead bolt in the inner door was unlocked.

"Into the Rabbit hole." Yukio said, pushing through the inner door, and holding it for Ron and Rin.

The lobby was quiet, a desk where a security guard should have sat was empty, and the entire place was dusty. Cobwebs hung from a chandelier overhead. "This is really spooky." Rin said.

"Yeah, I'm definitely getting that vibe." Ron said. He sniffed the air again. "Smells fine though, nothing I would consider unordinary in this context."

"And what context is that?" Yukio said as he looked around the room.

"Poverty, crime, and nothing to lose." Ron said, as he walked toward the stairs. "Doesn't look like there is an elevator, so I guess we're doing this the old fashioned way." he said.

"How many floors do we have to go up?" Rin said, following Ron up the stairs.

Yukio rolled his eyes. "What's the first number of the apartment we are going to?" Yukio said.

"Umm... 6?" Rin said.

"Exactly." Yukio said.

They didn't encounter a single soul while ascending the old wooden stares, although they did hear the odd, disjointed noise now-and-then, two people carrying on a conversation or a infant crying out through the paper-thin walls. All of them were breathing a little heavy by the time they reached the top floor.

"Okay, here we are." Ron said, huffing a little. "Whats the room number again?"

"Its 612." Yukio said. "Follow me." Yukio marched forward, down the hall. Many tightly packed doors passed by them on either side as they walked down the hallway, toward a window at the end were a faint light was shining in through the dirty glass, illuminating the dust particles as they moved through the air.

612 was the last door on the left. When the three of them arrived at it, they simply stood there, waiting for one another to do something. Or, more accurately, Ron and Rin stood behind Yukio as they waited for him to get up the nerve to knock. "Had better just get this over with." Ron said. Yukio just nodded. He brought his hand up to the door, and knocked, loudly, three times, in steady rhythm, before lowering his back to his side and waiting, silently.

It took a minute, but soon the sound of shuffling feat could be heard behind the door. "Who is it?" The raspy voice called out through the cracked wood and fading paint.

"Uhh..." Yukio stammered. "Yukio Okumura and party." He said, imitating what Ron had said over the intercom.

The click of a dead bolt could be heard, and then the door swung outward with a creak of rusted metal. Beyond the threshold stood a young man, maybe a year or two older than the three boys in the hallway. He wore baggy, sagged pants, a loose fitting t-shirt, and a do-rag was wrapped around his head, imitating that wacky western fashion. His upper-lip was covered with some gross undeveloped mustache hair, and his eyes seemed lost, big bags hung under them. "It's good to see you, Yukio." he said, smiling. "Come on in..." He stepped to the side, and beckoned the three of them in.

"It's good to see you, too." Yukio said, smiling back at the young man as he crossed the threshold into the small apartment, Rin and Ron in tow.

Once the three of them were inside, the young man leaned out the door and peered down the hallway for a second, checking it for anyone else that might wondering the halls. Once he was satisfied, he withdrew back in, closing the door tightly and resetting the dead-bolt before turning to his house guests.

"I see you brought some of your boys." he said. "That's good."

Yukio nodded. "Fujiwara, this is my brother Rin, and our friend, Ron Ferus. Ron, Rin, this my old school-friend, Fujiwara."

Ron and Rin both held out their hands.

"Pleased to meet you." Ron said. He sniffed at Fujiwara, detecting a great fear. Which wouldn't have been unusual under these circumstances. But...

"Nice to meet you." Rin said.

"Likewise." Fujiwara said, shaking both their hands.

Ron sniffed the air again, turning his head in the direction of the source off all this fear. Through the wall he could smell it, contained within it. It was static, unmoving and inactive. But there was a layer on top of it. It was not only a mere fear of what lie within the closet, but also a fear of being caught with it, and a fear of what might happen if he was caught with it. The most prominent scent however, was bitterness, a lack of fear.

"So we hear you have a problem." Yukio said. "Demons in the closet?"

Fujiwara nodded. "Yeah, its just over here." He motioned with his hand for them to follow. They followed him through an open doorway and into the single bedroom that was connected to the main living space of the small apartment. The only light was the little bits of sun that shown through the closed blinds. They walked to the back of the room, where there stood the two large cabinet doors that made up the entrance to the linen closet. As they approached, Ron began to notice a scent that was a great deal more... material than fear, and smelled a great deal fouler. He glanced at Rin and Yukio, noticing that the two of them were also recoiling a bit at the scent. Ron figured that is was probably just dirty laundry, and damned his heightened demon senses. Fujiwara pulled a small key out of his pocket, and used it to unlock the door before placing it on the bed stand next to him. He put his hand on the door knob to the closet, and looked back at them. "You guys ready?" He asked.

The three of them glanced at each other, before Yukio looked back to Fujiwara, nodding. "Go ahead." He said.

Fujiwara flung open the doors and then stepped aside, revealing... revealing...

The scent got them first. It blasted them as the doors opened. Rin fell to his knees, the smell of it overpowering him. "Oh... Shit.." He said, holding his nose.

"Oh my god..." Ron said.

Yukio was speechless. They peered into the closet, illuminated by a dime bulb within it. They stared at the three black shapes inside, garbage bags, conforming to the shape of the figures within them, human figures.

Fujiwara nodded. "Well, what are you gonna do about it? My boss says I have to get rid of these fast, the police is looking for 'em."

"Wha... What...?" Yukio managed to blurt out, his gaze still locked onto four dead bodies in the closet.

"Come on man." Fujiwara said. "I thought you were a professional." His eyes squinted, his brow furrowed. "I remember those stories you told me, 'bout fighting demons and all that. My uncle was an ex-mobster, told me about how it was code for Yakuza shit. Your family's with the Yakuza, right? You're cleaners?"

Yukio opened his mouth to speak. "I...I..." was all that came out.

Ron had heard enough. With urgency, he pulled out his H&K and pistol-whipped Fujiwara, knocking the young man unconscious. As he fell to his knees, Ron put his foot into Fujiwara's back, kicking him inside the closet. Ron quickly shut the doors, grabbing the key off the night stand and locking them as well.

Then he turned to Yukio. "Snap out of it!" Ron said, grabbing Yukio by the shoulders and shaking him. "We have to leave."

Yukio nodded quickly. "What about Fujiwara?" He asked, pointing toward the locked closet door.

"I'm sure he's got a cell phone." Ron said. "He'll call for help when he wakes up." He turned Yukio around, and pushed him toward the exit of the small bedroom. Then he reached down, grabbing Rin under the arm pit and pulling him to his feet. "Come on, lets go." He said.

"Alright." Rin managed to get out.

The three of them left the apartment quickly, stopping to look at nothing. They made sure to close to door quietly.

…

They didn't speak on the way back to the subway. They didn't speak on the ride back to True-Cross. They didn't speak on the walk to their dorm. They didn't speak on the way to their rooms. The silence was deafening. They all kept their heads down, avoiding eye contact with each other and anyone else that might be passing by.

Ron didn't even make it to his bed. He simply laid down on the floor and stared up at the ceiling. He didn't try to resist, he figured it would just make it worse, so he just let the images of the garbage-bag wrapped corpses flash across the manila paint of the ceiling like a slide-show horror film. His ears heard foot steps, but they didn't register in his mind. His door opened and closed, and the foot steps made there way past Ron, and sat down on his bed.

"Ron?" A voice said.

Ron tilted his head to the side, seeing Yukio, looking down at him as he sat on Ron's bed. After a couple of seconds, that fact that there was another person in the room with him finally made it through his thick skull. "Is there something you want to talk about?" Ron said flatly.

Yukio nodded, and looked away from Ron. "Last year..." he began. "me and Rin's grandfather betrayed us. He committed great atrocities with our aid, fooling us into thinking we were doing the right thing, before using our blood to open a gate to Gehenna, nearly killing us both." Yukio stopped for a second to let that sink. Ron gave a nod of acknowledgment, and Yukio continued. "After it was all over, and the gate had swallowed him whole... he got a grave stone, and a little plot of grass in the cemetery. Our father taught us that was a basic right for all men, if nothing else, than a slab of stone to remind the world that they were once here." Yukio stopped, and looked back at Ron, making eye contact with him. "Do you think that those four people in the closet will ever have grave stones?"

Ron breathed deeply. "I don't know." he said.

"Hmm." Yukio said.

"How's Rin?" Ron asked.

"Sleeping." Yukio said. "He has his own way of dealing with things. I try not to interfere."

"Hmm." Ron said.

Yukio bowed his head. "We will never speak of this again." He said.

Ron nodded "I know." He said.

Yukio stood, and walked to the door. He stopped on the threshold, his form filling the entrance to the room. "I remember what you said." He said, without looking back. "This..." he tapped his foot on the hard wooden floor of the dorm. "This really is a wonderful world." He tilted his head back, looking at the ceiling, as if peering off into some sky that wasn't there. "A veritable paradise." he said.

Then he left. Ron listened to his footsteps as he walked back to his room.

…

**There you have it! **

** Ron Ferus has been busy lately, despite the fact that I haven't been doing much with him. He is currently a featured character in the fic **_**Demon Children **_**by FF user 'operaghost96.' It is a great story that is coming along nicely, so I highly encourage anyone who hasn't read it yet to check it out. Also, FF user MikiMoke has very kindly offered to draw Ron for me, and you can check her progress thus far on her Deviant Art page of the same name.**

** Once again, if you would like to use Ron, Fear Demons (as I describe them), or the cannon from this fic in anyway, feel perfectly free to do so, just shoot me a PM when it's published so that I may read and enjoy it :)**


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